


Last Train

by incognitajones



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Doctor Kenobi, F/M, Meet-Cute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-05
Updated: 2016-07-20
Packaged: 2018-05-16 18:40:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 22,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5836495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/incognitajones/pseuds/incognitajones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stranded in a strange neighbourhood after falling asleep on the last train, Rey is out of reasonable options; maybe she'll have to consider an unreasonable one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Based on this prompt: http://tfa-kink.dreamwidth.org/1841.html?thread=2684977#cmt2684977  
>   
> Not sure how I wound up in this trash compactor, but here I am!

The train doors were closing, but Rey was not going to be left behind. She sprinted the last few steps down the platform, jammed her arm inside, and leaped through just before they jolted shut. Her momentum slammed her down into the closest seat and she puffed out an apology to the sour-faced man whose lap she’d nearly landed in. He didn’t say anything in return, but moved his leather messenger bag a grudging half-inch out of her way. Rey rolled her eyes (on the side where he wouldn’t see it, just in case) and pulled her earbuds out of the side pocket of her backpack. As usual for graveyard shifts at the hospital, the last half-hour had been frantically busy, and she’d had to run all the way to the subway station so she wouldn’t miss the last train. Now she was so wired from adrenaline, she didn’t know how she’d fall asleep once she got home. 

She thumbed to a quiet acoustic playlist and let out a sigh. The train wobbled as it rocked into a turn. Rey held herself stiffly upright to keep from leaning into the grumpy man beside her and clutched her backpack tighter on her lap. Through the windows on the other side of the car, the tunnel lights flickered and bobbed up and down and her eyelids began to flicker too…

 

A heavy weight slumped onto Ben’s left shoulder, startling him from the pre-sentencing report he was trying to read on his phone. “What the hell?” Now the rude girl was sleeping on him. Great. He looked around the train, searching for someone to lock eyes with and share one of those _can you believe this?_ moments, but it was totally empty except for the two of them now. 

He jostled his shoulder lightly, hoping to wake her up without too much embarrassment, but that only made her fall heavier against his side. Her lips were parted and she was snoring—little purring noises that would almost be charming, if she weren’t a complete fucking stranger.

It was hard to see anything of her face from this angle, mostly brown hair and a few freckles across her cheekbones. Under her cheap army surplus parka she was wearing what looked like hospital scrubs, baggy green and unflattering, and he felt an unwanted pang of empathy when he noticed the dark circles under her eyes. She looked the way he’d felt during his articling year, when it was physically impossible to get enough sleep between studying for the bar and working. He supposed it wasn’t so terrible for her to catch a few winks on him, as long as she didn’t drool on his coat.

 

Something was shaking Rey back and forth, not roughly but firmly. “Goway,” she mumbled and flapped her arm to shoo them off. Shit, she’d fallen asleep in the break room again. She bolted up, already panicking, before she realized it was even worse—she’d fallen asleep on the train. Oh god.

The grumpy man was standing up, looming over her in the sickly glow of the train’s fluorescent lights. “Hey. Hey,” he repeated, in an irritable tone that made it clear he’d been talking to her for some time. “This is the last stop, Sleeping Beauty.”

“Alright, alright, I’m awake,” she snapped. She jumped to her feet, grabbing her backpack. “You couldn’t have woken me earlier?”

“I Don’t. Know. Your. Stop,” he said slowly and distinctly, as though she wouldn't comprehend English. "And I tried, but you were too busy snoring and drooling.” 

Rey clapped her hand over her mouth as she saw the damp patch on the arm of his black wool coat. “Shit. Sorry. Um, what station are we at?” She never took this line all the way to the end; she had no idea where she was, which was confirmed when the station he named was completely unfamiliar. 

“You might be able to stay on the train until it starts running again in a couple of hours,” he offered. “Or they might come through and roust you. I don’t know.”

“What a totally helpful suggestion,” Rey muttered under her breath and pasted on her brightest screw-you smile. “I’ll get off here. Thanks for the wake-up call.” She shoved her way past him onto the platform and ran up the stairs to the top landing, where her phone finally showed a signal. She pulled up a map and frantically tried to figure out whether the buses were still running.

She could hear Grumpy’s deliberate footsteps coming up the stairs behind her and turned away so he wouldn’t try to talk to her again. His steps slowed and hesitated, but went past and out the exit when she didn’t look at him. 

The damned transit system website was absolutely unhelpful. Trains had stopped, buses weren’t running this far out anymore. A cab home from all the way out here would cost her this week’s grocery money; the closest Uber driver was 20 minutes away and wanted a frankly ridiculous amount. Rey gave into her temper and stamped her feet a few times, but it only made them hurt more. She leaned her forehead against the freezing tiled wall and groaned.

Rey was independent and self-reliant; she’d had to be that way her whole life, since she couldn’t count on anyone else. But times like this, when normal people seemed to have a long list of family and friends they could call for emergency help in the middle of the night, made her feel so alone. Rey didn’t have family, nor many close friends. Of those, Jessica was out on a date, Finn was working his own shift on the peds ward, and she didn’t know his boyfriend well enough yet to call him for a rescue in the middle of the night.

“Think, think,” she muttered to herself. There had to be some kind of 24 hour coffee shop or fast food place not too far away. She’d find somewhere to sit and wait until the trains started running again in—she checked her phone—three hours. There you go: problem solved. She could even study for her upcoming board exam while she waited. Multitasking, bitches.

But Rey's phone didn’t seem to understand what she wanted; no little red flags had popped up on the map. Maybe she still needed better reception. She took the last flight of stairs up to street level two at a time, eyes on the screen so that she didn't see anything in front of her until she ran straight into a wall of black wool. 

 

Ben hesitated at the metro entrance, trying to forget about the rude stranded girl. She’d made it clear that she didn’t want his help. But she hadn’t come out of the station yet, and the image of her trying to sleep on a bench down there was interfering with his need to get home, take off this damned suit, and relax. Fine. He’d go back and check on her one more time before giving up. 

Then she barrelled into him from behind and shrieked, although she was the one who’d collided with him. He turned around just in time to see her overbalance and grabbed for her arms before she could fall down the stairs and crack her head.

“Are you trying to kill both of us?” he demanded. 

Instead of thanking him, she shoved him away and snarled, “I wasn’t expecting you to be stalking me.”

“I’m not stalking you.” He rolled his eyes. This is what he got for giving in to a rare altruistic impulse. “I just—I just wanted to make sure you were okay. Is there something I can do to help?”

She bit her lip, looking doubtfully up at him. “Actually, I’m trying to find an all-night coffee place where I could hang for a couple hours. Do you know of one nearby?”

“There isn’t anything,” he sighed, and the girl bristled at him as though he was lying. “It was all warehouses around here until a couple years ago, and even now there aren’t a lot of restaurants in the neighbourhood. The closest café is three or four miles that way.” He jerked his head west.

“Oh.” She stared blankly down the street. All of her aggressive energy suddenly deflated and her shoulders sagged in defeat. Shit, were her eyes starting to shine? No, she was not going to cry on him after she’d already drooled on his dry-clean-only coat. Absolutely not. 

“Hey.” Ben waved one hand in front of her eyes, and she jerked her head back to look at him. “Not to interrupt your pity party, but my place is just across the street…” He trailed off as his brain caught up to his mouth and he realized what he was saying. 

The girl looked as shocked as he felt. “I’m not going to fuck you,” she blurted, gripping the straps of her backpack and staring at him belligerently.

He sighed again, feeling his exasperation rise. “Look, it’s not a proposition, just offering somewhere to hang out until the trains start running again. I swear I’m not a serial killer. And besides, for all I know you’re some kind of con artist. Maybe this is how you scam your way into people’s homes to rob them.”

“Oh, for crying out loud.” She glared up at him. “I’m not a con artist.”

“Then since we’re both apparently upstanding citizens, is there anything that would get you to trust me enough to come over?”

 

Rey chewed on her chapped bottom lip some more. She really shouldn’t even be considering this. It was not a good idea in many, many ways. But she was out of reasonable options, so maybe she had to consider an unreasonable one.

She looked at Grumpy again, taking the time to study him thoroughly instead of just catching glimpses out of the corner of her eye. He was dressed in black head to toe, and everything he was wearing looked expensive, from the soft wool scarf to the leather boots. He’d be just another professional-slash-business asshole except that his hair was long and scruffy—not artfully tousled, just messy. He had to be more than six feet tall from the way he towered over her, but somehow all of his features still seemed too big for his frame: his nose, his mouth, his hands and feet. He bore her inspection without saying a word, though he certainly hadn't shown any previous signs of patience.

“Give me your wallet,” she said abruptly. 

“I thought you said you weren’t a con artist,” he muttered, but he dug a small square out of his messenger bag—black leather, of course—and handed it over. She flipped it open and dug through. Library card (that was unexpected), Amex card in the name of BEN ORGANA-SOLO, more credit cards… there was what she needed: his driver’s license. She thumbed her phone on, took a photo and texted it to Finn with the message _Long story but I’m hanging at this guy’s place tonight. Call me in the morning to make sure I’m not dead_. 

She snapped the wallet shut and handed it back to him. “Okay, let’s go.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooo, I decided to add a second chapter that would justify accidentally rating the original piece M. Then these two dorks insisted on talking to each other before taking their clothes off… my apologies. They’ll get around to it, I promise.

Ben led the rude girl across the street to his apartment building, still dazed at what he’d suggested. Was he actually inviting a stranger into his home, without even the chance of getting laid to justify it? 

Heavy, wet snow had started falling and their feet left long trails in the slush as they slogged through it. The girl’s flimsy sneakers slipped on the curb and Ben grabbed her arm to make sure she didn’t fall. In the lobby, she grinned in childish enthusiasm at the old gated elevator that had been reconditioned when the building went residential. “Cool.”

“It breaks down a lot,” Ben said dryly. “I usually take the stairs.” 

They climbed to the third floor and headed down the hall, the girl trailing him like a damp duckling. As he unlocked the door and ushered her inside his apartment, he realized he had no idea what to call her. “You know my name now. What’s yours?”

“Oh, right. I’m Rey.” She shook his hand, absurdly polite now. “Thanks for inviting me in out of the cold.”

Her hands were freezing. Didn’t she have any proper gloves? “No problem,” Ben muttered. He threw his coat and bag on the hook where they belonged and helped her wrestle out of hers. Melting snowflakes glistened like stars in her hair. She took off her soggy shoes and lined them up neatly on the hallway floor next to her backpack, so she had some manners at least.

He waved around the room. “Make yourself at home. I’m just going to get changed out of this suit.” If she grabbed his wallet and ran for it after all, he probably deserved it.

 

Ben disappeared behind what must have been his bedroom door. Rey decided to take him at his word and wandered through the open kitchen-living space, yanking her hair out of the tight coil she kept it in while working and combing through it with her fingers.

She’d been expecting a typical bachelor pad, black leather furniture with chrome accents and awful “art” prints or a _Scarface_ poster on the wall. Instead it was expensive-looking but still scruffy—kind of like Ben himself. The leather couch was brown and well-aged, and the walls were pleasantly cluttered with black and white photos of old buildings. There was a bookcase full of books, and not just old textbooks. 

The bedroom door clicked shut and Rey turned to see Ben walking toward the kitchen island. Her fingers caught on a knot in her hair and she swallowed a nervous giggle. In a tight black t-shirt, the wide strength of his shoulders was much more obvious. In fact, considering how many naked people she saw every day at work, Rey could confirm that his whole upper body was objectively, ridiculously hot.

Hang on. Why was she noticing Grumpy Ben’s body? They’d both been clear that sex wasn’t on the table. Besides, he was almost a decade older than her; she’d seen his birthdate while glancing at his license. He wouldn’t be interested in a perpetual student who still didn’t have her life together.

“Want a beer?” Ben held out a Mill Street. “Or should I ask to see your ID first?”

“Ha ha,” Rey said, grabbing the cold bottle out of his hand. “How old do you think I am, anyways?”

“Honestly?” He eyed her critically up and down. She couldn’t really object, considering her earlier in-depth examination of him, but she still lifted her chin and straightened her spine in an attempt not to seem intimidated. “Twenty-two.”

“I’m _twenty-five_ ,” she exclaimed, outraged. “I’m a medical resident, for pete’s sake.”

His mouth curled into a smirk around the beer bottle, and she realized she’d fallen for his teasing. “I figured as much,” he said, gesturing at her faded scrubs. “Long shift?”

“The longest,” Rey sighed. “Plus I’ve got board exams coming up soon.” She scraped at the label of her beer with her thumbnail, uneasy admitting even that much. Years of fighting to make sure her life looked pulled together on the surface when she could barely hang on had made her wary of letting anyone know when she was having trouble. Too often it was just an opportunity for them to use it against you.

“You hungry?” Ben had turned around and was digging through the fridge again. From this angle she couldn’t help but notice that he filled out his sweatpants pretty well too.

“Not really.” Of course her stomach chose that moment to growl, and she wanted to sink down through the floor. “I had dinner earlier.” The fact it had been a granola bar from the vending machine four hours ago wasn’t relevant.

He dumped an armload of bread, cheese, and cold cuts on the counter. “Well, I’m always hungry when I get home this late, so I’m going to eat. You’re welcome to join me.” He yanked his hair into a knot, fastening it with an elastic he grabbed off the top of the fridge. Somehow that made his ears look even bigger, which she wouldn’t have thought possible, but she appreciated the way it brought his cheekbones out too. Ben caught her eyeing him and flushed. “I used to work in a kitchen and chef would scream at anyone who didn’t tie their hair back. Now it’s just habit.”

She perched on a stool in front of the counter, trying to picture Ben in kitchen whites. “When did you work in a restaurant?”

“I was a sous-chef in undergrad. I liked it but when I got into law school I had to quit, the hours were too long.”

“Are you a lawyer now?”

“Yes. A criminal defense lawyer.” He looked up from the bread he was slicing, meeting her gaze in a challenge. “Go ahead, tell me I’m scum.”

Rey raised her hands. “Whoa there. People accused of crimes need to be defended, I’ve got no beef with that.”

Ben seemed almost disappointed that she wasn’t giving him grief. “I’ve gotten used to having to justify it when in fact I have a position in a prestigious firm, the work is challenging, and the money allows me to pay off my student loans and still afford this place.”

“Don’t know who you wrote that little speech for, but I suggest you work on your delivery, because it doesn’t sound convincing.” Rey leaned over the counter and stole a pickle from the jar he’d just opened.

Ben’s sneer was truly impressive. She bet he practiced it in the mirror. “Anybody ever tell you you’re pretty fucking opinionated for an infant?”

“Lots of guys. Usually right after they learn their opinion is wrong.” She bit the pickle in half deliberately, raising her eyebrows at him as she chewed. 

A reluctant laugh escaped him. “Point taken.” He slapped a sandwich piled high with ham and cheese in front of her, mustard oozing out the side of what looked like half a loaf of French bread. Rey’s mouth watered and she couldn’t stop herself from taking an enormous bite. “Want another beer?” he asked.

“Wa’er, plea?” she managed to get out around the lump of food crammed in her mouth—very elegant. He understood her, though, because he filled a glass from the tap for her before sitting down on the stool beside her and biting into his own oversized sandwich. They ate in strangely comfortable silence for a few minutes, until Rey pushed her plate away with a sigh and drained the whole glass of water in a single gulp. “Thanks for the sandwich.” She checked the time on her phone, but the next train was still two hours away and she still had exams in a month. “I’ve got some literature review to do, is it okay if I camp out on your couch for a while?”

“Sure, I’ve got some work to do myself,” Ben said, tugging the tie out of his hair. “Will it bother you if I play music?”

“Not unless it’s thrash metal.” Rey dug out a bundle of notes and printed articles, somewhat damp from sitting in her wet backpack, and wedged herself against one arm of the couch. She watched Ben out of the corner of her eye as he sat down at the other end with his laptop, but despite his size he didn’t encroach on her personal space. Rey went back to slashing her highlighter across the pages and ignored the sound of him pecking away at the keyboard interspersed with the occasional curse. 

An hour later, Rey yawned and looked up from a thrilling study on preventing blood clots after hip replacement surgery. She was running out of steam and needed to stretch. Glancing over at Ben, she saw why he’d been so quiet the last little while—he was asleep. His head had tipped backward over the top of the couch, which had to be a strain on his neck, and his laptop was tilting precariously on his thighs. His big hands lay open at his sides, twitching briefly as he stirred. 

She leaned over to grab his laptop before it could crash to the floor and set it on the coffee table. Should she wake him? It wasn’t like he was going to miss his subway stop if she didn’t. With his eyes closed, the dark circles around them were more prominent, and as a fellow sleep-deprived soul, she decided it was kinder to leave him be. 

Rey stood up, cracked her neck from side to side, and got herself another glass of water. She’d review for another half-hour or so and then head to the station to wait for the first train. With a sigh, she picked up her notes again and settled back into the couch.

 

It was the silence that woke Ben. The playlist he’d put on must have ended, and he never slept well without background noise. He was on the couch, for some reason, and something warm was burrowing into his right side—then he remembered: Rey. In their sleep, they’d tipped over from opposite ends of the couch and ended up falling into each other somehow. Ben had a confused memory of grumbling and pulling Rey closer after she elbowed him in the ribs. Her head was resting on his chest (she’d probably drooled on him again) and his right arm was wrapped around her, his hand on her hip. 

Was falling asleep on people some kind of fetish he’d never heard of before? She certainly seemed incapable of staying awake around him. He could feel the warmth of her body pressed against his, her breath on his jaw like the ghost of a kiss. It was hard to remember that he should wake her up, remind her to catch the train. He cleared his throat and whispered, “Hey.” 

Rey’s eyes blinked open. When she turned her face up to his, she smiled drowsily and Ben’s breath hitched. He wasn’t used to people looking so happy to see him. “You fell asleep first this time,” she told him.

“It’s my couch,” he grumbled. He wondered what would happen if he angled his head down just the centimetre it would take to touch his lips to hers, but before he could move she leaned up and closed the distance between them. 

At first the kiss was sleepy and soft, both of them still half-dreaming. Then Rey sighed and slid her right hand across Ben’s shoulder, fingertips stroking just inside the collar of his shirt, and the skin to skin contact woke his entire body.

He sat up, dragging her on to his lap with her legs dangling between his, and spread his hand over the nape of her neck to press her closer. Rey grabbed his head with both hands, tangling her hands in his hair and using it to direct the angle of their kiss. Ben was already hard and aching against her thigh, but the noises she kept making into his mouth and the way she nipped at his lower lip were so mesmerizing he was in no hurry for more. 

They kissed for minutes or hours, until at last he needed a moment to breathe. Ben drew back, slowly, and rested a hand on Rey’s cheek. Forehead leaning against hers, breath panting and throat dry, he stared into her golden hazel eyes trying to read what she wanted. Before he could say anything, Rey spoke. “I changed my mind,” she said hoarsely. “I definitely want to fuck you.”


	3. Chapter 3

Bed. _Now_. Ben stood up and took Rey with him, picking her up under the knees like a swooning maiden. She laughed at him, but the way she clutched his shoulders tightly made him feel like a superhero even though it was only three steps across the room and a kick to his bedroom door before he dropped her on his bed. 

She spread her arms and legs like a starfish, sighing. “I love king-sized beds.” 

He fell to his hands and knees over her, caging her lower body, and pushed her baggy green top and sports bra up in the same motion. 

Ben knew he had a type: Amazonian women with a great rack, and the closer to his height the better. Slender, wiry Rey with her small high breasts was nothing like that. Her body was implausibly small to contain such a forceful personality—he could cover half of her with just one of his hands stretched wide, spanning from her navel up to the notch in her collarbone. She stared at him when he did just that, her rapid breathing making his fingers rise and fall.

He leaned down to taste one nipple, looking up at her through his hair. “Tell me when I get it right.” 

He quickly discovered that Rey was quiet in bed, but not passive; she used her hands and her whole body instead of her voice to show him what she wanted. There was nothing delicate about her other than the freckles that dotted her skin. She liked to yank his hair, and when he pulled her scrub pants down and off in one rough motion she arched into him with a gasp. 

He kissed his way up her thigh and over her panties. She was already wet, her muscles tense with need as he pulled the underwear down and spread her thighs open with his shoulders. She grabbed at his hair again and the sting on his scalp made him groan. He had to use one arm to hold her hips still as she dug her heels into his back, bucked up into his mouth and came apart under his tongue.

 

This was her best idea ever. Rey had forgotten how good orgasms courtesy of someone else could be; every muscle in her body was slack, and the tension headache she’d had for four days had vanished. To de-stress before her board exams she was definitely going to do this again—possibly even with Ben. 

But right now he still had all his clothes on, which was less than ideal. Rey dragged Ben’s t-shirt off over his head and ran her fingertips across his anterior deltoid, along the clavicle, down his sternum to the faint trail of dark hair that followed the linea alba below the waistband of his sweatpants. God bless male anatomy. 

Ben lifted his hips and she shoved the pants as far down his unnecessarily long legs as she could. He kicked his feet out of them and at last all of him was naked and warm against her. Now she wanted him inside her.

“Condom,” she gasped. Ben leaned over, jerked open a drawer in his nightstand and scrabbled around inside until he found a foil packet. Rey took over and rolled it carefully down over him; she’d seen the consequences of too many broken condoms at her job to let anyone else handle this part. The way his cock jumped in her grasp was just a bonus.

He pushed her hair out of her eyes and watched her face as she spread her legs underneath him. “Okay?” She nodded. He drove inside slowly, so slowly, even though she was already wet and open from his mouth. Rey shuddered and scraped her nails down his spine as she savoured the feeling of every inch pushing inside. But he kept moving slowly and patiently after that, which was polite but misguided. 

She dug her hands into the muscles of his ass to urge him on. “You don’t have to wait for me. I can’t go again so soon.”

He propped himself up on his elbows and looked down at her. “Don’t you want to try?”

Rey closed her eyes. Great, now he thought he had to prove her wrong for the sake of his ego. “It’s just me. Don’t take it personally.”

“There’s no rush.” He brought one knee up beside her hip and wrapped his arms around her waist, keeping their bodies meshed together as they rolled over. “Take all the time you need.”

From her new position straddling him, Rey looked down at Ben’s stubborn expression. She sighed, but decided it wasn’t worth arguing about. If he was really persistent she could always fake it. She rose up and down, circling her hips experimentally at the bottom of her stroke, hissing at the way his thickness stretched her. 

Ben let her set the pace, not trying to speed up or slow down. He pressed his thumb against her clit and she shook her head, pulling his hand back up to her chest. “Too sensitive.” He was a fast learner, she’d give him that—he kept his hands on her breasts, pinching, plucking, stroking them, and the circuit between her nipples and her core started to spark again. Maybe Ben was on to something after all.

Rey leaned forward so that he could use his mouth on her breasts, and the change in angle hit exactly the right point. She felt the telltale flutter inside her that signalled another orgasm gathering force. A moan escaped her and she pushed back against his hips as he finally pressed up, using the leverage to go deeper. 

People talking to her in bed had never done much for Rey; she preferred action to words. But Ben whispered an endless stream of quiet filthy words in her ear, telling her _grind down on me, that’s it, use my cock, make yourself come on me, fuck me_ —until every muscle in her body locked and she couldn’t move, stopped breathing for a moment as his hands on her hips driving her down were the only thing that kept her moving through the white-out of her orgasm. She heard Ben shout as he slammed his hips up one more time and came.

When Rey could see and speak again, she was draped over Ben’s body like a wet towel. Her disheveled hair was plastered everywhere, including in his mouth. She pulled the strands away and rested her chin on his chest. This close, his face was more a pleasing arrangement of strong angles than a cohesive portrait. She could see the pulse beating in the hollow of his throat, and touched the black mark just above his mouth that looked like someone had drawn it on him with ink. 

“You’re staring,” he said.

“There’s a lot of you to look at.” 

Ben smiled—a true, wide smile, not a smirk—and transformed into a completely different person, someone a little shy and dorky instead of intense. Rey watched in fascination, pulling her finger across his cheek to rest in the little dent there. “You’ve got a dimple.” 

He ducked his head, still smiling, into her shoulder. “I know. I can’t help it.” 

He nudged her off gently and disentangled himself to dispose of the condom. Rey stretched out, luxuriating in the ability to extend her arms as far as they could go without touching the edges of the mattress, and wondered whether hookup etiquette demanded she should leave right away. 

Ben lay back down on the bed, propping himself up beside her on one elbow. “Do you have to be somewhere?” he asked, seemingly reading her mind.

“Unbelievably, I have a whole 36 hours off before my next shift at the hospital. I wasn’t planning on doing anything today but lying around my apartment catching up on my sleep.”

He ran his hand down her arm. “Well, you could do that here. You obviously find my couch comfortable enough for a nap.”

“Oh.” Rey wasn’t sure what that meant. Was Ben inviting her to crash, or to stay for another round, or did he actually just want to spend time with her? “Um, don’t you need to go to work?”

“It’s Sunday,” he reminded her. “Even lawyers get to take the day off, usually. I didn’t have any plans this morning other than making a big breakfast.”

“I tend to lose track of the day of the week,” Rey admitted. She smiled up at Ben. “Breakfast sounds good.”

She was too sore for another round of sex, but Ben considerately got her off with his fingers in the shower and she returned the favour. He gave her a clean t-shirt to wear and an enormous hoodie to go over it. When she pretended to doubt his breakfast skills, he pulled his hair back again—Rey seized the opportunity to stand on tiptoe and nibble on those absurd ears from behind—and demonstrated that he did in fact remember how to flip an omelette.

Rey was laughing at his spatula flourish when her phone rang from the coffee table where she’d left it last night. That would be Finn, being a good friend and checking up on her as requested. “Sorry, I should get this. Just a sec.”

She grabbed her phone and walked over to the window to look out over the snow-covered roof of the warehouse next door. It was still too early for a winter sunrise but bands of pastel light layered the eastern sky. 

“Not dead yet?”

Finn’s cheerful voice made her smile. “Nope. Thanks for checking.”

“Seriously, everything okay? I texted Jessica and she said you weren't back. I was worried you were still having trouble getting home.”

“I, uh, ended up staying longer than I planned. But it’s cool.” She glanced over her shoulder at Ben, who was dividing the omelette onto two plates and didn’t seem to be paying attention to the conversation.

“Oh, so that’s how it is. This Ben guy didn’t look like much but I’ll assume he treated you well if you're still there.”

“You assume correctly. Just don’t tell Poe—I don’t want to hear the stranger danger lecture from a cop.” Another ringtone went off and she turned to see Ben disappear into his bedroom, presumably to pick up his own phone.

Finn laughed. “I won’t rat you out. But at least text your roomie an ETA so she knows when to expect you.”

“Yes, dad. Talk to you later.” 

Rey crossed back to the kitchen counter and picked up her fork to start in on the omelette. She could hear Ben’s voice from the bedroom, muffled but rising in volume. Whoever was on the other end of the line didn’t seem to be making him happy. 

Ben’s half of the conversation suddenly became loud enough for her to hear. “How is any of that my fucking problem, Huxley?” Rey swallowed anxiously, her throat dry. Something about this was making her nervous. “So if _Snoke_ wants something done then you have to get it from me, is that it? You’re such a lazy prick.” A long beat of silence. “Fuck you. I’ll be there in forty-five.”

He slammed the bedroom door behind him, already wearing jeans and in the middle of buttoning up a black shirt. The relaxed, endearing Ben she’d met here had turned back into the scowling jerk from the train. “Something’s hit the fan at work and I have to go in.” 

“That sucks. I’m sorry.” The eggs she’d gobbled down were sitting uncomfortably in her stomach.

He stood stiff and embarrassed and ran a hand through his hair. “I have to leave right away, I’m afraid. No time for breakfast. And I don’t want to leave you behind.”

“Yeah, no, I get it.” She hopped off the stool. “I wouldn’t want to leave a total stranger in my apartment either.” 

Ben winced. “I can give you cab fare—”

Rey was suddenly furious. Yes, this was awkward, but Ben was making it so much worse than it had to be. “No thanks. I’ll catch the train now that it’s running again.”

Ben stared at the floor. “I’ll walk you over.” 

He stood silently by the front door, Rey’s anger rising with every second as she tore off his borrowed clothes and fumbled into yesterday’s scrubs, gathered up her notes and phone to stuff into her backpack, dragged her wet hair back into a ponytail, and shoved her feet inside her still-damp sneakers. He tried to hand her her coat but she ripped it away and wrestled into it by herself, banging through the door and marching down the hall. She didn’t give a rat’s ass whether he followed her or not.

 

Ben grabbed his coat and bag and chased Rey down the stairs, the cold fingers that had been pulling at his spine ever since his phone rang tightening their grip. What the hell had he done? He’d actually invited Rey to stay longer this morning. He’d been thinking of asking for her number, forgetting that he didn’t have time for the kind of scene where two people not only slept together regularly but ate breakfast together and expected daily texts and shit like that. 

He didn’t have time for social activities, period; he couldn’t remember the last time he’d done something as simple as go out to a movie or visit a bar for anything but networking. But that was fine, that was good, because in a couple of years when he’d made partner the pace would slacken and he’d be able to have a personal life. Just—not right now. He ignored the voice inside him pointing out this theoretical target date for a life kept receding farther into the future; he used to think it would be after he’d passed the bar, or found his first job.

Besides, look at her. As she stomped across the street, sending snow flying, Rey was cute, but she was still an infant—hardly the right material for a girlfriend. More importantly, she had her own tough job, and if there was one thing Ben knew it was that two people who both had demanding careers did not make for a good match. His parents were proof of that.

She turned around at the top of the station stairs. “I’m not going to bother saying thank you and goodbye, since apparently your manners have gone to shit again.”

The embarrassment in the pit of Ben’s stomach curdled into anger. Neither of them had implied or expected anything more than one night at the start of this thing. Wasn’t Rey supposed to be a functioning adult? “Just because I treated you nice in bed doesn’t mean I’m a nice person. You’re old enough to know that, Rey.”

Her head reared back as if he’d slapped her and her eyes fired up. “Just for the record, it wasn’t the sex that fooled me, it was all the other times you were nice to me. If it wasn’t real that makes you a great actor, Ben, but a complete fucking asshole.” 

She paused, her throat working, and he thought she might actually spit at him. Instead she poked him in the centre of his chest, hard. “No, I take that back.” She jabbed at him again, in rhythm with her words as her voice got louder. “Assholes are perfectly useful body parts. What you are is an anal fistula!” By now she was shouting at him and he’d backed up step by step until he was almost in the street. “Look it up!” 

She spun away from him and launched herself down the stairwell, flinging one arm up behind her as she went. The last he saw of Rey was a raised middle finger.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Will Ben get his head out of his ass? Let's hope so!  
> 


	4. Chapter 4

Sunday was shit. That was all there was to say about it. Ben didn’t get home until past midnight, when he drank half a bottle of expensive bourbon neat because it was the only hard liquor in the apartment.

On Monday morning, Ben was hungover and curt with his assistant Phyllida, breaking his own rule—only fools underestimated the power of admin staff to make their lives hell. He had to buy her a hideously overpriced coffee from the hipster roasting house down the block in compensation. After that, he saved his bad temper for the crown attorney’s office; they expected him to be an asshole. Or anal fistula. 

He was pretty sure he’d never get that image out of his head.

Tuesday was another draining twelve-hour day, half of it spent in court. The intellectually demanding cases that had lured Ben to work for Snoke had long ago been replaced by boring, rote justifications for bad behaviour. He didn’t much care whether his current clients beat their DUIs and assault charges, which was a serious failing in a defense lawyer.

More and more often over the past year, he’d indulged in a fantasy of leaving First Order Associates and striking out on his own. The thought of all the belt-tightening it would take had always brought him back to reality. But two more paycheques would wipe out the last of his student debt. And if he was able to poach Phyllida, who was a great paralegal and would make an even better lawyer someday… maybe he could make it happen. He didn’t fool himself that the work would be any more interesting, at least to start with; petty criminal charges were what paid the bills. But it would be on his own terms.

Work didn’t drive one skinny, freckled girl out of his head, though; by Friday, she still refused to fade away. The sex had been memorable, it was understandable if that stayed with him, but he kept recalling the way she’d smiled at him when she woke up on his couch—and how she’d given him the finger as she stormed away.

That was why he kept thinking about the rude girl, of course; he wanted to give her a piece of his mind. Her overreaction had stunned him so much, he’d been reduced to sniping at her in return instead of a calm, rational dismissal. Well, he’d run into her on the train at some point, and when he did, he’d tell her she was a lunatic.

But their paths didn’t cross again. One evening, he thought he saw her, or at least a flash of chestnut hair half-hidden by a crowd of German tourists, but by the time he’d pushed his way to that end of the subway platform no small figure in scrubs was there.

It wasn't until Ben half-seriously considered trying to track Rey down that he realized how little he knew about her. Not only did he not know her last name, he didn’t even know how she spelled “Rey” or whether it was a nickname for something else. He knew the subway stop she got on at, but as a transfer point for a few lines it was one of the busiest in the city. There were also four teaching hospitals within walking distance, and it wasn’t as though he could call them up to demand the names of all the female residents on staff.

After a month passed without any trace of her, Ben admitted to himself that he was never going to see Rey again. Unless he tried posting a Missed Connections on Craigslist, which was a) deeply humiliating and b) did anyone even read those things anymore? At least he had enough dignity left to avoid that.

He didn’t want to keep thinking about Rey, but she nagged at him like something left undone. The urge to make her eat crow had faded; now he just wanted to see her so that he could… what? He had no idea.

Ben was thirty-four years old, for Christ’s sake; he hadn’t pined since he was in high school and he wasn’t about to start now.

 

“Jesus, Rey, I can always tell when you’re in a shitty mood,” Jessica complained, picking her way through the stacks of review material Rey had piled on the floor in their living room. “You listen to way too much Gillian Welch.”

“Mopey alt-country makes me feel better when I’m stressing.” Rey threw her highlighter on the coffee table and flung herself backwards on the couch, pressing the heels of her hands against her aching, dry eyes. BB jumped up and formed a purring, orange and white ball in her lap.

“It doesn’t do anything for me.” Jess handed her a beer and sat down, sinking into their flabby secondhand couch. Rey bent her knees to make room and tucked her bare toes under Jess’s thighs. “Try drinking like the rest of us. Or getting laid.”

“Yeah, because that went so well last time.”

“Uh-huh. Let’s recap.” Jess pointed her bottle at Rey. “The guy invited you into his home when you were stranded, didn’t pressure you for anything in return, gave you three quality orgasms and breakfast, and somehow you’re pissed at him?”

Rey drained a third of her beer in one long swallow. “You’re forgetting the part where he kicked me out.”

“Because he had a work crisis, you said.” Jess reached over to scratch BB’s jowl. The cat didn’t move, but his purring doubled in volume.

“He was rude about it. And he never asked for my number.”

“Would you have given it to him? Or asked for his?”

Rey’s stubborn silence was her answer.

“Oh, Rey. You know I love you but you have textbook intimacy issues,” Jess sighed. “I mean, the whole book and every chapter in it.”

“Screw you, Pava. If I wanted to hear psychobabble I’d have gone into headshrinking myself.”

Jess rolled her eyes. “Then tell me, why didn’t you call me in the first place when you were stuck out in the boonies?”

“Because it was date night for you and Deepa.”

“And both of us would have been glad to help out in an emergency. Rey, you need to start believing that people care about you. You have friends who’d help if you ever gave them a chance.”

Rey stared down at the furry ball in her lap, stroking the velvety tips of BB’s ears, while Jess went on with her favourite lecture topic.

“You haven’t had a boyfriend—or girlfriend—in the two years we’ve been roommates.”

“I’m a fifth-year surgical resident,” Rey groaned. “We don’t have time for personal lives, it’s in the program handbook. Besides, I was seeing Paul the EMT for a while.”

Jess snorted. “That wasn’t a relationship. You banged him twice in the closet at the hospital and then freaked out on him when he asked you to dinner.”

“How the hell do you know that?” Rey sat up straight, and BB jumped off her lap with an indignant squeak. “Have you and Finn been comparing notes?”

“Yes.” Jess grabbed Rey’s beer and put it down on the coffee table with her own. “Fair warning, it’s hug time.”

“Oh, come on.” 

But Rey didn’t pull away when Jess wrapped her in her arms and rocked back and forth, even when hot, humiliating tears gathered in the corners of her eyes. This was why she didn’t want to start relying on other people; it would only make her soft. Still, she couldn’t help resting her head on Jessica’s shoulder for a brief moment of comfort. “Don’t tell me to see a counselor again. I don’t have time right now.”

“Okay, but the minute you pass your exams I’m giving you the names of at least three people I know who you could talk to.”

“You think I’m that broken?” she mumbled into Jessica’s t-shirt.

“You’re not broken, Rey. You just need to learn to bend a little.” Jess’s hand moved to stroke Rey’s hair and she wondered if this was what it might have been like to have a big sister, or a mom. “Let some people into your life.”

“They’ll just leave.” Rey’s voice was thick, clogged with held-back tears.

“Not all of them. Finn and I will always be your friends. And you’re a survivor, you’ll be okay if someone doesn’t work out. Try it and see.”

“Fine. Someday.” Rey sat up and sniffed, swiping her sleeve across her face. “Just not right now.”

“Good. I’ll hold you to that.” Jess let go of Rey and scooped up BB, who had jumped on to the coffee table in a bid for more attention, before the cat could knock over the beer bottles. “Now go to bed and get some sleep before you pass out. And if you have to listen to this crap, at least use your headphones.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just wanted to say thanks so much to everyone who’s left kudos and commented. I don’t normally post WIPs and I have to admit, knowing that there are people waiting to read the next part definitely helps with motivation.

“Hey, welcome back, Doctor Kenobi,” Kaydel greeted her cheerfully. “How’d the OSCE go?”

Rey smiled to cover her anxiety. “Pretty well, I think.” Waiting two weeks for the results to be posted online was going to drive her squirrelly, and it didn't help that everyone she'd seen on her first shift after exam leave had asked about it.

“I’m sure you aced it. You going to apply for a fellowship and stick around for a while?”

“Nope. At some point I’ve got to quit being a student and actually start practicing.” Even on a surgeon’s income, Rey was going to owe her soul to the bank for another decade before all of her student loans were paid off.

Rey flipped through the charts at the nursing station, scanning diagnoses, drug notes and anything else essential. An odd hyphenated name caught her eye. Why did Organa-Solo sound familiar…? Oh. Him.

“What’s the story on 12N?” The chart had the gist of it—MTBI, cracked ribs, broken clavicle—but she wanted to hear the ward nurse’s opinion. They always had the full scoop.

Kaydel shrugged. “Fairly standard PVA. Restless, though. Admitted at six pm and he’s been demanding to get the hell out of here ever since.”

Rey rolled her eyes, unsurprised. “I’ve met him and yeah, demanding sounds about right. I’ll stop by and see if I can get him to quit being pushy with you guys.”

“I knew there was a reason you’re my favourite.” Kaydel winked.

Since Ben’s collarbone didn’t need surgery, she wasn’t technically treating him, but there was no reason she shouldn’t stop by and say hello, right? She knocked on the open door of his private room and stuck her head in. 

“Hi there. Remember me?”

His head lolled toward the sound of her voice and his eyes opened slowly. 

Rey had pictured seeing Ben again, but in those imaginary scenarios she’d always encountered him on the subway and given him the cold shoulder. And from Kaydel’s description, she’d expected an alert, arrogant patient she could happily scold about being rude to the nurses. Instead, he looked dazed and miserable. A dark ring was forming around his right eye and his torso was mottled with far more extensive bruising, already turning the deep violet-black of a thundercloud.

“Are you real?” He watched her cross the room with a momentary delay in focusing his eyes as she moved. 

“Wow, they’ve got you on the good stuff.” The chart had had a notation about pain management being insufficient, but Rey would bet the increased fentanyl dosage was mostly to stop Ben from heading out the door. Nurses: don’t get on their bad side.

Rey hadn’t gone into surgery just because she liked fixing broken things; she was a soft touch for anyone in pain, and Ben was no exception. She wondered why he was in such a hurry to leave when he was obviously hurting. He was probably cold, too; the hospital was always chilly and he wasn’t wearing anything above the waist thanks to the sling immobilizing his right arm.

“I’m going to take a look at your shoulder now,” she informed him. On film it had looked clean, just a simple midshaft fracture. Rey went through her hand-washing routine and loosened the sling, palpating the break as delicately as she could. He still winced at the pressure of her fingers.

She brushed sweaty hair off his forehead and checked his pupils: a little constricted but equal in size. “Can you tell me how it happened?” 

“I was crossing the street and some anal fistula hit me with his SUV,” he said, trying to re-focus on her. His eyes were lighter than she’d remembered, amber with warm tints of brown. 

Rey snorted, unwillingly amused. “That phrase is what stuck with you?”

“I remember more than that.” 

Well, there was obviously nothing wrong with Ben’s circulation; he couldn’t blush all the way from his hairline to his pecs without excellent blood flow. Rey looked away from his chest and re-adjusted the sling. “I heard you want out of here. If that’s the case, you’ll have to call someone to pick you up. They won’t release you without a ride home and someone to stay with you for a few hours, not with an MTBI.”

“A wha…?” He blinked.

“Mild concussion,” she translated.

“I don’t have time for a concussion. I need to get back to work.” His voice rose in agitation and she placed a hand carefully on his good shoulder.

“Well, you can’t right this second,” Rey said, using her most soothingly persuasive bedside manner when she really just wanted to tell him to shut up and rest. “And if you try, you won’t be able to do your job very well anyways. You need to be serious about recovery, Ben, or it’ll just take longer.”

His left hand plucked restlessly at the thin sheet over his legs.

“So is there anyone I can call for you?”

“I called my assistant,” he mumbled. “She’s coming by in a couple hours.”

His assistant? Was there no-one else he could reach—friends or family? Rey reminded herself she didn’t need to know. She unfolded the scratchy polyester blanket from the foot of the bed and laid it over his upper body. “Maybe just try to sleep until she gets here and you can go home, alright?”

Ben muttered something that might have been an affirmation, his eyelids already drifting shut as he sank back into drug-induced vagueness. Well, at least he had someone to come get him. Still, Rey figured she’d ask Kaydel to page her when he was discharged; it couldn’t hurt to ensure this assistant knew the guidelines for post-concussion care.

 

By the time she was paged to 12N again, the end of Rey’s shift was so close she could taste it and she was exhausted from her scalp to her toenails. She wanted to brush it off and go home, but the image of Ben’s bruised, woeful face wouldn’t let her. Grumbling to herself, she walked in without knocking and interrupted a soft-voiced, seething argument.

A tall blonde woman who defined the word statuesque was leaning against the wall, arms crossed over her chest. She must be the assistant Ben had mentioned. “I can’t do this, not if you want me to be able to cover your ass at work—”

“Well, they won’t let me out of here without you, so at least pretend that you’re taking me home.”

“Um,” Rey said eloquently, hovering in the doorway. “Now that I’ve heard that I really can’t ignore it.”

“You’re his doctor?” The woman pushed herself to her full height, which was impressive—only half an inch shorter than Ben, if that—and pinned Rey with a stare that made her feel extremely insignificant. 

“No, I’m _a_ doctor, but the point is, if he’s been discharged under false pretences I can’t sign off on it. He needs competent supervision at home for at least another 12 hours.”

“Shit.” Ben was sitting on the side of the bed, more or less dressed in a pair of sweatpants and a hoodie zipped up to his chin with the right arm flopping empty. “Please, Rey, can’t you just let it go?”

“Ben, you’ve had a brain injury,” she said slowly, trying to drive the words home. “You need to be observed, do you understand that? What happens if you have a seizure later today?”

He sighed and rubbed his face with his left hand, rasping against the stubble on his jaw. “I’ll call 911.”

Rey put her hands on her hips to keep from wrapping them around Ben’s neck. “Is he always like this?” she demanded of the blonde woman.

“Most of the time, yeah.” She extended her arm. “Phyllida. Call me Phaz.”

They shook hands, Rey automatically noting the corded muscles under the woman's white cotton shirt rolled up to the elbow. “Hi, Phaz. I’m Doctor Kenobi—Rey.”

“You never told me to call you Phaz.” Ben sounded offended.

“It’s not appropriate in a work setting,” Phaz responded without looking at him. “So how much longer does this wanker have to stay here? Because I really do need to try and organize some of the chaos this is going to cause at the firm.”

“Twelve hours in hospital is enough, goddammit.” Ben’s face was pallid under the bruises but he stood, stiffly and precariously, levering himself off the bed with his left hand. “I am not staying in this room another minute. I’ll sleep in the fucking hallway until they let me go home on my own.”

“No, you won’t.” Rey pressed her fingertips against the bridge of her nose, trying to think of any better solution than the one she was about to suggest. Unfortunately, nothing came to mind. “Look, I just finished my shift. I have twelve hours before I have to be back here. If it’s okay with you, Ben, we’ll take a cab back to your place and I’ll watch you until then.”

Phaz looked torn between relief and sympathy. “Don’t you need to get some sleep?”

“I can sleep, I’ll just need to check on him every few hours. He should rest as much as possible too, frankly.”

Ben’s mouth had fallen open and he was staring at Rey with an expression she couldn’t interpret, but was pretty sure involved a hefty proportion of shock. Her mouth twisted into a rueful smile at her brass nerve. “Looks like I just invited myself over again. Is that alright?”

Both of Phaz’s eyebrows reached toward her hairline, but she said nothing.

“Yeah. I mean—yeah,” Ben stammered. “If it gets me out of here, absolutely.”

“Then it’s a deal.” She turned to Phaz. “Can you get him down to the lobby? I’ll meet you there in five minutes, I just need to grab some stuff from my locker.”

 

It must be the concussion, or the drugs, because Ben couldn't quite comprehend how getting hit by a car had somehow resulted in him letting Rey back into his apartment. And just to increase the weird humiliation factor, she was here because she felt sorry for him, the friendless loser who didn’t have anyone else to make sure his brain wasn’t scrambled.

As soon as the door was open, she took charge, heading straight down the hall to his bedroom. He shuffled in to find her throwing the bedding back and rearranging pillows at the head of the bed. “Lie down on these, elevate your upper body. I'll get you an icepack.” 

He sat down rigidly and managed to tip over without bending anywhere but at the waist, the pain in his ribs punching a staccato noise out of him.

Rey returned juggling a glass of water, a pill bottle, and a bag of frozen corn that must have been in his freezer for years. She dropped a painkiller into his left hand and he gulped it down while she wrapped the corn in a towel and draped it over his right side. He clenched his jaw, sucking in a breath through his teeth, and waited for the cold to numb his nerves. 

Rey grabbed her backpack and disappeared into the bathroom for a while. Ben lost track of time as he concentrated on breathing shallowly enough to avoid sending spikes of pain into his lungs. Eventually, he didn’t know how long afterward, she came out in a tanktop and a pair of gym shorts. “Can I take a blanket for the couch?”

The painkiller must have kicked in, because his brain-to-mouth filter was offline. Ben found himself saying, “There’s plenty of room and I won’t go near your half of the bed. It’s not like I can move right now anyway.”

“It would make it easier to check on you.” Rey hesitated, biting her lip. “Fine.”

She put the makeshift icepack back in the freezer and diligently went through the same checklist he’d heard before he was released: if he experienced severe headache, nausea, or dizziness at any time he should tell her; she’d wake him every four hours for a quick status check. After he’d promised her that yes, he understood what to watch out for, Rey turned off the light. She climbed on to the far side of the bed and arranged herself on her back with tiny, hesitant movements as though he were a carton of eggs she didn’t want to crack, even though at least three feet of mattress separated them. 

There were no windows in Ben’s bedroom, which was on the side away from the street, so it was dark and quiet. His medicated daze in the hospital hadn’t been very restful and it had been at least eighteen hours since he slept properly. He should have passed out as soon as he laid down. 

But the throbbing ache in his shoulder burned, and his mind wouldn’t stop replaying the accident—not the impact or the aftermath, but the instant that he’d realized the car was going to hit him. He’d seen the driver’s panicked face and the metal edge of the windshield wiper coming straight at his eyes. It was just lucky timing that it had been moving away by the time the hood of the car struck him half a second later, or he’d have a gouge across his face as well as a crushed shoulder.

Ben gave up on trying to sleep, opened his eyes and stared at the invisible ceiling. His usual solution for insomnia was out. Even if he’d been able to use his right hand at the moment, jerking off while Rey slept a few feet away would be crass, to put it mildly. He sighed and gingerly tried to shift into a more comfortable position. 

Sheets rustled as Rey rolled over on her side toward him. “I can hear you thinking. Can’t sleep?”

“No.”

She yawned. “No screen time allowed, but I could get your phone if you want to listen to music. Or do you want a cup of tea? What makes you sleepy?”

“Small talk.” It was selfish of him to keep Rey awake, but the sound of her voice was reassuring. “Tell me something boring. Where are you from?”

“Nowhere, really. I never know how to answer that.” A long silence from the other side of the bed. “I had a pretty fucked-up childhood—deadbeat parents, crappy foster homes, etcetera. It screwed me up in a lot of ways I know about, and probably some I don’t.” 

Ben didn’t know what to say. He’d only meant to ask Rey an innocuous question about where she grew up, and instead he’d managed to exhume bad memories and hurt her. As usual, he’d ruined things without even trying. 

She forced out a tight, unconvincing laugh. “I have no idea why I said that. I don’t usually spill my sob story to people I barely know.”

He turned his head slowly to look at her, ignoring the grinding pain that scraped through his shoulder. But in the dark room, she was just an outline of deeper shadow; her expression was invisible. An impulse to show her some of his own scars swept over him. 

“I haven’t seen or talked to my parents in nine years,” he said abruptly. “And you already know I don’t have any friends, because that’s why you’re here. If there’s a contest for the most fucked-up person in this room, I don’t think you’re winning.”

A wet, stuttering breath escaped her, and this time he couldn’t tell whether it was a laugh or a sob. “So what you’re saying is we’re both total messes.” 

“Basically,” Ben agreed. He couldn’t roll over on his side, so he inched his left hand across the mattress until he could hook his fingers around hers. Her hand was cold. “Speaking of messes, I’m sorry for the way the other night ended. When you were here before.”

“Why?” Rey asked. “I lost my temper first. Maybe you weren’t the most tactful, but it wasn’t exactly fair of me to go off on you like an uncovered blender.” 

Ben stifled his laugh before it hurt too much. But he smiled at Rey’s ink-drawn silhouette. “If that’s your idea of an apology, I’ll take it.” 

“Good.” She curled her hand around his and squeezed. “Awkward apologies accepted on both sides.”

Her breathing slowed and sleep dragged Rey under in a few minutes. Ben closed his eyes and drifted in a kind of half-conscious haze, listening to the quiet drone of her exhalations, his hand still wrapped up in hers.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FINALLY. Thanks again to everyone who read, commented, and/or kudosed for your patience.

Rey slammed the dented locker shut with her hip and slung her backpack over one shoulder. Shoving her earbuds in, she sidestepped through the hospital’s slowly wheezing automatic doors and headed down the block to the subway station. She checked her phone, but there were no new messages.

 _Ben’s fine_ , she told herself. He was a grown man; injured, sure, but not critically. All he needed was a few days of rest. If he would just take them.

The rising sun slanted between pillared skyscrapers, shining in her eyes, but it didn’t soften the bite of the early spring air. Rey huddled into her scarf, shoved her hands into the pockets of her jean jacket and wished she’d remembered gloves.

They had to be even now, right? Ben had offered her a place to crash when she was stranded and in return, she’d helped when he needed a hand. She’d done everything that was reasonable for someone she hardly knew—probably more than most people would have. His concussion symptoms hadn’t gotten any more severe before she left for her night shift, but she’d left him her number just in case. If anything happened, he could have called or texted.

The second day after trauma was always the worst, though. His cracked ribs would be throbbing, his strained muscles would be stiff, and his bruises would have darkened to black. The man didn’t even have a real icepack, just a stale bag of frozen vegetables. 

Rey stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, fingers tightening on the strap of her backpack. She hovered there, indecisive, until an impatient office worker hurrying past clipped her on the shoulder. She cursed, blew out a resigned sigh and pivoted on her heel. 

“If I’m doing this,” she muttered, “at least I’m not spending my own bloody money on him.”

 

Ben ignored the first tap on his door. Even if he could get off the couch in less than five minutes, he didn’t have the energy to chase off whatever fundraiser or salesperson had managed to get into the building. But they were persistent. After a short pause, the knocks began again, faster and louder until they were nearly pounding on the door. 

“Ben! It’s Rey.”

Maybe he was hearing things, although hallucinations weren’t on the long list of concussion symptoms Rey had rattled off to him. Why would she come back—had she left something behind? He scanned as much of the room as he could without moving, but he didn’t see anything that belonged to her. 

The beat on the door continued. Clearly she wasn’t going away. Ben held his breath to brace himself against the pain as he heaved himself upright. He shuffled down the hall and unlocked the door clumsily with his left hand.

Rey was poised with her fist hanging in the air, preparing to knock again. She stared open-mouthed at him. Ben had caught a glimpse in the bathroom mirror earlier so he knew just how awful he looked: his right eye was bloodshot now, sunk in a deep pool of bruising, and the whole side of his face was slightly swollen.

All he could think to say was, “How did you get in the building?”

“If you buzz enough numbers, someone always lets you in.” She shrugged, her eyes lingering on his bruises. “Can I come in for a second? I brought you some stuff.” She lifted the plastic bag dangling from her other hand.

He backed slowly out of her way, holding the door open. 

Rey headed for the kitchen and dumped the contents of her bag on the counter, sifting through a bunch of icepacks, a smaller sling, and a few other things he didn’t recognize. “Did you take the painkillers and stay in bed?”

“...Yeah.” That hardly sounded convincing. Normally he was a better liar.

He wandered out of the hall and into the middle of the living room, scrubbing his left hand at the base of his skull in an effort to dislodge the headache there. Shit. He’d left his laptop open on the coffee table. He shuffled over, trying to block it from her view.

Too late; she’d spotted the evidence.

“Ben.” She planted her hands on the countertop and stared him down. “You can’t do that. Maybe—a big maybe—you can do a little work from home the day after tomorrow, if there are no lingering symptoms. But don’t count on it. And you shouldn’t go anywhere near the office until next week.”

Acid frustration churned in his gut. He didn’t need a doctor to tell him he couldn’t function properly; he’d spent all night trying to make sense of one page. “If I lose my job, I’ll sue you,” he muttered, only half-kidding.

Rey rolled her eyes. “A law firm ought to understand that not accommodating a temporary medical condition puts them on shaky ground. I’ll write your boss a note if that’s your worry. But at this rate, you’re going to make it worse, and then you’ll be away from work even longer.” She grabbed a chemical coldpack and cracked it between her hands to start the reaction. “So suck it up, buttercup.”

Somehow her blunt lack of sympathy made him feel better. Ben’s mouth twitched as he tried not to smile. “Your bedside manner is terrible, Doctor Kenobi.”

“Difficult patients get the stick, not the carrot.” She pointed at the couch. “Now sit.”

Ben obeyed, gritting his teeth. Rey tucked the coldpack around his shoulder and shoved some pillows behind his back to keep him from sinking too far down into the cushions. It did help, a little. 

He stared longingly at his laptop, just out of reach on the coffee table. Rey grabbed it and stuffed it behind a row of old legal textbooks on the bookcase. He felt like throwing something—if only he could. “How long is this arm going to be useless?” 

“You can use it tomorrow, and you should. Just take it slow and easy—no heavy lifting. Lateral range of motion comes back sooner, probably within two weeks. Arm over your head,” Rey demonstrated, “maybe six weeks. Longer if you won't take care of yourself,” she stressed again.

“Do you make housecalls to lecture all of your patients?” 

“Call it an occupational hazard. I can’t stand to watch someone who’s injured make it worse.” Rey picked up the TV remotes and moved them out of his reach as well. “I’ll bring your next painkiller and then I’ll get out of your hair.”

The thought of being alone in his apartment for another day with only the ache in his bones and his head, nothing to break the silence echoing from the walls, made him desperate enough to say, “I wouldn’t mind company.” He shrugged one shoulder. “I mean, if you don’t have to go to work.”

“No, I just finished a shift.” Rey hesitated, glancing toward the door. 

Of course she had something better to do. Why had he been stupid enough to assume that she was free to waste her time with him? He looked down at the floor, curling his toes against the hardwood.

She sighed. “I’ll stay for a little while. At least that way I’ll know you aren’t using your laptop.” 

“Thanks,” he mumbled.

She brought him a pill and a glass of water. He tried to talk her into turning on the TV, but she refused. “Nope. You can listen to music, or pick a book and I’ll read to you. Nothing work-related, either,” she added. 

Ben scowled, disappointed; for a moment he’d hoped he could convince her to read the latest crim law digest. “Fine.” He pointed to the bookshelf and his battered paperback copy of _Dune_. 

Rey turned it over in her hands dubiously, riffing her thumb through the yellowed pages before settling down to his left, careful not to jostle him. She propped one shoulder against the pillows she’d stacked behind him, rested her feet on the arm of the couch, and started reading. “In the week before their departure to Arrakis, when all the final scurrying about had reached a nearly unbearable frenzy…” 

Ben closed his eyes. Rey wasn’t a great reader; she stumbled over some of the long sentences and difficult names, but he didn’t care. Her voice was light and pleasant, and listening to it was a thousand times better than the way he’d spent the night after she left: either staring at the ceiling or trying to force his eyes to make sense out of text that kept crawling across the screen in blurred lines.

She was most of the way through the first chapter before she slowed down and started slurring. Ben opened his eyes and saw her head bob and sink to her chest. The book jerked in her hand as her fingers twitched, and then dropped to the floor as they lost their grip. He shook his head, amazed at Rey’s ability to fall asleep anytime, anywhere, and in any position, no matter how contorted. Another occupational hazard of being a doctor, he guessed.

She was going to wake up with an unholy crick in her neck this way, though. He inched his left arm out from behind her, letting her slip slowly down across his chest. Her head ended up on his thigh, her tangled hair falling over her face. She mumbled something and yawned but didn’t open her eyes. 

Ben looked up at the bookcase where she’d stashed his laptop. Rey was obviously exhausted. He could probably get up without waking her and manage a few hours of work before she stirred. Or he could stay pinned beneath her and do nothing. 

Rey curled onto her side, turning her head away from him and pressing her cheek into his leg. More hair slid across her face and in front of her mouth; he brushed it away and tucked it behind her ear. He told himself he was simply following medical advice and resting as directed.

 

When Rey woke, the sunlight coming in through the windows had shifted across the room to slant over her feet and warm her toes. The weird book was splayed where it had fallen on the floor. Her head was in Ben’s lap and his left hand was absently stroking her hair, drawing it gently through his fingers. 

Rey couldn’t remember the last time someone had touched her like this—for no reason at all, for the sake of touch, as though their hands were drawn to her. She loved it when Finn and Jess hugged her, but even that wasn’t the same kind of simple, bare intimacy. Ben’s hand moving through her hair made her skin feel prickly and too tight, the same way waking in his bed the other night with his fingers still curled around hers had.

She slid her eyes sideways, trying to look at Ben without moving her head. From this angle she couldn’t see much other than the stubble darkening his chin and a shadow of the plum-dark bruises higher on his cheekbone. She tried to imagine having someone to fall asleep on any time, to call for help whenever you were lost or hurt. Maybe this was why people talked about relationships as though they were worth the risk. But wouldn’t you lose your self-reliance? What happened when you got used to having someone at your back, and then they left?

Ben caught her watching him and the slow, soothing movement of his hand stopped. Reflexively, she nudged her head against his palm, like BB when the cat was demanding attention. She cringed as soon as she realized what she’d done, but he just began smoothing his hand over her hair again without a word. 

“Sorry for falling asleep on you again,” she mumbled. 

“I’m used to it by now,” he said with a wry twist to his lips. “It’d almost be disappointing if I didn’t put you to sleep.” 

No matter what Jess thought, Rey wasn’t ready for an actual relationship. But it was tempting to wonder whether she could have all of this—simple physical affection, good sex, possibly even a friend—for a little while. Maybe trying it for the rest of her time in the city wasn’t a bad idea, kind of like a relationship with training wheels. She’d be the one leaving and there’d be a definite expiry date. It couldn’t last long enough for her to get dependent or Ben to get bored. No way for it to turn into a messy disaster.

Although she probably shouldn’t put it to him quite that way.

Rey pushed herself up from Ben’s lap and resettled on the couch to sit cross-legged facing him, her knee brushing his thigh. She pulled her hair over one shoulder and twisted it into a loose coil as she wondered what to say.

“You look like you’re plotting something.” Ben cocked his head.

“Just an idea.” Rey rubbed at a fraying spot on her jeans, poking her fingertip through the little hole to the exposed skin. “I won’t be living here much longer. Once I get board-certified, I have to find a job, which means moving out of the city if not the province.”

He looked mystified. “What’s your point?”

She shrugged, still picking at the flaw on her denim-covered knee. “Neither of us is looking for something long-term, but we seem pretty compatible. We could hang out for a few weeks, until I leave town?” She tried to sound off-handed and confident, but it still came out like a question.

Ben laid his hand over her restless fingers. “Sounds like a good idea to me.” When she glanced up, he was smiling a little lopsidedly, the bruised side of his face not moving as much, and the dimples she knew were there didn’t come out. “But you didn’t have to fluff my pillows and read to me just to get into my pants again.”

“You think I came over here for that?” Rey snorted. What kind of pervert did he think she was? She pulled her hand away from Ben’s and folded her arms across her chest. “You’re in no shape to do anything right now, even if you weren’t in pain.”

“So make me feel better, Doctor.” 

Ben turned his head and pressed his mouth to hers. His lips were cool and a little dry. Rey sighed and tilted forward into him, cupping the unbruised side of his face. She tried to keep the kiss tentative and soft, but she forgot to be careful when he pushed back against her, his tongue slick and his teeth catching her bottom lip. She lifted her other hand to hold his head at just the right angle. Lost in hazy, half-familiar pleasure, she rediscovered all of her favourite things about Ben's mouth, until she fisted her hand in the softness of his hair, unthinking, and he hissed in pain.

Rey jerked backward. “Sorry, sorry.” She brushed her thumb delicately across his cheekbone, barely tracing the edge of the deepest bruise, feeling like the worst kind of selfish creep. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You won’t.” His voice was a little hoarse. He reached out to gather the rope of her hair in his left hand and tugged on it gently, drawing her back toward him.

She frowned at him and pulled away, shaking her head. “We can do this later.”

“Come on,” he coaxed. “It’s fine. I’m fine.” 

She licked her lips and gave in, letting her mouth gravitate toward his again. Another sigh escaped her, sharing her breath with him as they kissed. It was hard to keep her hands to herself, away from his bruised body; they wanted to rise from her lap and curve around the muscles of his back. She fisted them on her thighs to keep them still.

He wrapped his left hand around her elbow and pulled, twisting her shoulders in the other direction. “Turn around.” He shifted his leg, nudging her toward his lap. Rey resisted—this really wasn't a good idea, even if Ben thought he was okay—but his breath was warm across the skin beneath her ear. “Please.” 

“Just for a minute,” she muttered, settling into the notch of his hips. His left arm curled around her, his hand lifting her loose t-shirt, feather-light on the underside of her breasts. Her head fell forward and his mouth moved across the nape of her neck, leaving a shivery trail. She squirmed as the tension in her belly began to coil tighter, but she fought to keep her spine upright, reminding herself that she couldn't lean back and put any weight on his immobilized arm. 

Ben's left hand slid lower, following the thick seam of her jeans, pressing the stiff fabric against her. His knees opened between hers and spread them wider as she moaned. She strained her head back, searching for his mouth, but she couldn’t kiss him properly at that angle. The scrape of his teeth through her shirt along the line of her trapezius was almost enough to compensate. 

“Zipper,” he muttered and her buzzing, disoriented mind needed a moment to catch on. She ripped the fastening open, panting. When his fingers pushed hers aside and dipped under the waistband of her panties the noise she made was so needy she would have blushed if she weren't too desperate to care. Her hips rose without thought, rocking against Ben's hand, chasing the current sparking through her.

She came with his hand between her legs and his mouth on her neck, digging her fingers into his thigh so that she wouldn’t slide to the floor as her body melted, every nerve and muscle unravelling at once. 

“Show-off,” she gasped when she could speak again, and felt Ben smile against her skin. “How am I supposed to follow that?”

He kissed the bump of her seventh cervical vertebra. “What do you mean? I thought I was too fragile for sex right now.”

“Yeah, well. If you can do that, I’m pretty sure you can handle this.” Rey slid forward off his lap and thumped to the floor on her knees. She turned around, feeling his thigh muscles tense beneath her palms as she dragged his sweatpants down to his ankles and grinned up at him. “Let’s find out.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come say hello on Tumblr ([same username](https://incognitajones.tumblr.com/)).  
> I've been noodling with an edit & a playlist to go along with the story.


	7. Chapter 7

“Earth to Rey!”

She pulled her attention back to Finn. “Sorry, what?”

He smirked. “I asked whether you were coming out with us after work, or going out with loverboy. I guess the fact you didn’t hear me answers that question.”

Rey lifted her cup and gulped more coffee, trying to cover the warm blush moving up her cheeks. She considered herself reasonably sexually experienced; she’d tried pretty much everything that interested her (plus a few things that didn’t) and she knew what made her feel good. But she’d never experienced a craving this raw before—it was like a tingle at the base of her spine keeping her off-balance until the next time she could touch Ben. And he seemed to be just as greedy for her. It wasn’t even as though they were doing anything particularly exotic, but somehow, everything felt more intense. 

“Your face is like a sunset, Rey.” Finn laughed. “I never would’ve pegged you for a blusher.”

She gave up on trying to hide her distraction. “Okay, fine, I was thinking of going back to his place after my shift.”

“What happened to Doctor I-don’t-have-time-for-dating Kenobi?” 

“Nothing. We’re not dating.”

Finn waggled his eyebrows. “Jess says you’ve barely been home for a week except to grab clean clothes. That sounds a little more than casual.”

“Great sex doesn’t equal a relationship. This is a fling, with a built-in expiration date.” The coffee roiled in Rey’s stomach and she put her cup down. “Come on, Finn, did you have to remind me how shitty the job search is? My best lead right now is in Nova Scotia.” She propped her cheek on one fist with a sigh. “Nothing against Halifax, but I don’t want to live there.”

Finn grabbed her other hand and squeezed it. “Hey, think positive. Maybe St Joe’s will suddenly need another ortho surgeon.”

“Not bloody likely.” She stared into the dissolving foam of her half-finished latte.

“Speak of the devil.” Finn jerked his chin at the line of people waiting for coffee, which now snaked halfway through the shop. “Isn't that him?”

Rey turned around, expecting Finn to have mistaken some random dark-haired white guy for Ben. After all, he’d only seen his driver’s license photo.

But it was definitely Ben. Wearing a suit, too, though she hadn't seen him in anything but sweatpants or, well, bare skin in the last week. His shoulders certainly filled it out nicely. He didn’t have to use the sling anymore, but his right arm still didn’t have its full range of motion, so she wondered how he’d managed the tie. Maybe his scary assistant had done it.

She’d stared at him for too long, because he raised his head from his phone and caught her looking. But Rey refused to be flustered by seeing him. This was her coffee hangout, after all, and she was an adult who could handle running into her hookup out of context. She raised a hand briefly in greeting; he took it as an invitation. Once his drink was securely gripped in his right hand, he bulldozed his way through the crowd to their table.

“Nice suit,” she said. 

“Thanks.” He glanced down as though he were surprised to find himself dressed that way too. The bruises on his face had finally faded to sickly green and yellow. “First time back in court since I hit my head today. Hopefully I haven't forgotten everything I knew.”

“Good luck, then.” She waved a hand across the table at Finn, who was grinning broadly. “This is my friend Finn, he works on the pediatric ward.”

“Hey, man. Nice to meet you.” Finn’s face was so open and guileless that Rey immediately knew he was up to something. “You know the Whistling Pig up the block? A bunch of us from the hospital are stopping by there later tonight. You should come.”

Panicked, Rey kicked out. She missed Finn’s leg and bumped the table, setting it wobbling and slopping her coffee up the sides of the cup. She grabbed it before it could spill over and glared silent death threats at Finn.

“Have to work late tonight. I’m still behind on all my cases.” Ben shoved his left hand through his hair, making such a lopsided mess that Rey’s fingers itched to smooth it out. “Plus I’m sure Rey would tell me not to mix alcohol with painkillers. But you guys have fun.”

He looked down at her, his expression blank and unreadable, and his empty hand hung in the air between them for a moment. Rey couldn’t tell if he was going for a handshake or a half-hug. In the end he pulled back without touching her at all, and left with a brief goodbye and nod to Finn.

“That was awkward,” Rey groaned. “Looks like I’m going to the bar with you after all.”

Finn had the grace to look mildly apologetic. “Didn’t mean to cockblock you. I was just trying to get a feel for the guy.”

“Well, he’s not interested in hanging with my friends,” she snapped. “Because we’re not dating. Just like I said in the first place.”

 

So things were perfectly clear: Ben wasn't her boyfriend. They never made plans more than a few hours in advance, and they never spent time together without having sex. He cooked for them once he was able to use his right arm again, but only because she told him she couldn’t afford to split the cost of takeout all the time. Their text chain on her phone was nothing but a long series of variations on the question “Are you free later?” and responses with either a refusal or an ETA.

Still, sometimes it was hard for Rey to remember, because Ben would do things that seemed like too much effort to spend on someone who was just a casual orgasm provider. He let her wash her scrubs at his place and even started buying the non-scented detergent she had to use. When she hadn’t had anyone else to text, he’d come to get her after her third appointment with the counselor Jess had set up left her a weepy mess. He didn’t ask any questions, just called a cab and took her back to his apartment and curled around her on the bed until she was able to stop crying. (Then he made her come so hard she sobbed again.)

But what did Rey know about actual relationships? Nothing, that was the whole point. And just when she’d start to wonder whether his behaviour meant anything, Ben would go silent for days. She wouldn’t hear from him again until her phone chimed with a text asking whether she could come by his place after her night shift was over. The message was clear: he wasn’t her boyfriend.

 

Ben woke, as he usually did, in the early hours of the morning. He still rarely slept through the night, even though he’d found sharing his bed less intrusive than he would have thought. Rey took up so little physical room that even fighting for pillow space with her long hair didn’t bother him that much.

She wasn’t beside him now, though she’d fallen asleep there earlier, her skin still flushed and sweaty. She must have gone to work; she didn’t often leave in the middle of the night, but depending on her shift schedule it happened occasionally. 

Ben sat up and stretched gingerly. He couldn’t do much with his right arm yet, but just being able to lift it again without pain was a vast improvement. His mouth was dry and his headache had returned. A glass of water would be a good idea before he decided whether to try going back to sleep, or give in and open his laptop to get some work done. At least Rey wasn’t here to give him the evil eye in the morning.

But when he walked into the kitchen, she was standing at the windows in the living area, staring at her phone. The black t-shirt he’d been wearing earlier hung loose from her shoulders and halfway down her thighs. She spun around when she heard his footsteps, clutching the phone to her chest in a panicky grip.

“What’s up?” 

“Nothing.” She turned back to the window, her shoulders tight and her arms locked across her body. The glowing screen of her phone, half-hidden under her elbow, was reflected in the glass.

Ben set his empty cup in the sink and approached her slowly. He’d learned over the past few weeks that there was no point in asking more questions about whatever bothered her; Rey only talked when she was ready. Wrapping his arms around her, he rested his chin on the top of her head. The surrounding blocks were mostly dark except for the sulphur yellow grid of streetlights. In the distance, traffic signals and headlights pulsed and flowed along the main arteries.

“Certification results are going to be posted on the College website today,” she said abruptly. “I thought they might go up at midnight, so when I couldn’t sleep I got up to check. But there’s nothing there yet.”

He tightened his arms, surprised. Rey wasn’t insecure about her work; she was confident in her skills and knew she was a good surgeon. At least, she’d always seemed that way to him. “Are you really worried about not passing?”

“No,” she admitted. Her spine softened just a little and she leaned back into him. “I just hate waiting. This has already taken ten years of my life, you know? And now I still have another six or seven hours to get through before it’s confirmed.”

“Sounds like you could use a little distraction.” He pried the phone gently out of her hand and tossed it on the couch. “Nothing’s going to change before the morning. Take a break.” She sighed, but turned around in the circle of his arms and rose on her toes to kiss him. He walked her backward, lifting the hem of the t-shirt above the curve of her ass, and boosted her up to sit on the wide windowsill. When he dropped to his knees, she squeaked and kept her legs primly together. “Ben!”

He laughed. “No-one’s awake out there, and if they were all they’d see is your back.” He curled his fingers around her legs, drawing little circles on the inside of her thighs with his thumbs, gently coaxing her knees apart until she relaxed. 

It didn’t take long for Rey to come. Ben was almost disappointed. He wasn’t ready to stop; he wanted more of her soft breathy moans, her taste, her scent around him. He eased off, letting her come down from the intensity, kissing her slick thighs and sanding the roughness on his chin against them before he started over again. He remembered he had two working arms now; he could slide his right hand up her warm flank, palm her breast and feel it move with her ragged breathing.

Now she was making satisfyingly incoherent noises and her legs were trembling. She clamped her hands on the windowsill to keep herself upright when Ben pressed his thumb inside her, circling the swollen, sensitive spot that made her gasp. Her hips began to shake uncontrollably. Her spine arched and her head snapped back so far that her head thumped against the glass as she came again with a high-pitched, cut-off whimper.

Once her legs had stopped shuddering, Ben pulled back, wiping his mouth with the back of one hand, and looked up. There it was, the expression he craved. Like him, Rey didn’t show her inner self very easily, but now that he knew her better he could see the signs of total relaxation: her normally sharp eyes a little glassy and dazed, her mouth slack with pleasure. It was gratifying to know that he was the one who’d done that; he could make her forget her worries for a moment, make her happy—at least from the neck down. Experience had taught him that was generally all he had to offer. 

 

Rey had been walking around all day in a haze of relief since she finally got the phone call this morning. But it wouldn’t seem quite real until she’d had the chance to tell everyone. Finn had been satisfyingly exuberant, hugging her on the ward and buying her a KitKat from the vending machine to celebrate. Jess had sent three texts full of confetti, thumbs up, and 100 emojis. 

She didn’t know why she felt anxious about telling Ben. But when he opened the door to let her in, something stopped her from blurting out the news immediately. Instead she just moved in for a kiss, a serious one, delving into his mouth with more deliberate heat than saying hello warranted.

“Mm.” Ben hummed against her lips. “Hold that thought. I was just about to sear a couple of steaks.” He turned back to the kitchen.

Rey hung her backpack up in the hallway, rolling her eyes. “You don’t have to feed me every time I show up, you know.”

“Tell me you had something other than coffee and a protein bar today and I might believe you.”

“Hey, I had a chocolate bar too.” 

She laughed at his laughter and sat on her usual kitchen stool. Ben had already created a small pile of mushrooms and moved on to chop onions while two cast-iron pans heated on the cooktop.

Rey took a deep breath and tried to keep her voice light, excited. “Guess what? I found a job.” 

“Where?” The knife in his right hand kept moving, metronome-steady.

“Vancouver.”

“Congratulations.” He looked up from the growing heap of tiny translucent cubes on the cutting board and smiled. “That was the hospital you liked, with the oncology specialty, right?” 

He turned away and slapped the seasoned steaks into the bigger pan to sizzle and immediately throw off an aroma that made Rey’s stomach growl. She leaned over to steal a thin slice of mushroom while Ben’s back was turned. 

“Yeah. No doubt I’ll spend most of my time on skiing injuries, but at least I'll get to do something a little more rewarding too.”

“You'll love Vancouver. It’s your kind of place.” He caught her pulling her hand back from the cutting board and snapped a dish towel at her fingers. 

Rey’s interest was piqued. “Really? How do you know?” They didn’t talk much about their pasts, but from a few stories of his law school days she knew Ben had gone to Osgoode Hall, not UBC.

He turned back to the stove and dumped the onions into the smaller pan, keeping his back to her. “I grew up there.” 

Rey had become fairly fluent in Ben’s body language, and this was a clear signal that the topic was not one he wanted to pursue. But she was so curious she couldn’t help asking. “Why’d you end up here if you liked the West Coast so much?”

 

“I didn’t say that,” he corrected her. “I said you’d like it. And I ended up here because it was a better choice professionally. Same reason you’re heading out there.” He reached for a pepper grinder and cranked it over the sizzling meat. 

Rey rested her chin on her hands and stared at Ben’s back. His shoulders were elevated and tense. There was more to the story, and she figured there was a very good chance it had something to do with the parents he said he hadn’t talked to in years. But he was obviously not willing to provide any more details, and she didn’t have any excuse to pry. They didn’t have that kind of relationship.

Ben turned the stove elements off under the and reached up for two plates from the cupboard. “So when do you leave for B.C.?” 

“Three weeks.”

“Then we’ll have to make the most of them.” He gave her a half-smile as he set the plate in front of her and leaned over the counter for a swift, hard kiss before handing her a fork and knife. 

Rey’s stomach unclenched and she started shovelling food into her mouth. She’d had no reason to be nervous, after all; Ben didn’t care.

 

Rey definitely wasn't his girlfriend. She slept over fairly often, but that was because of her off-kilter working hours. And she was fanatically careful not to leave anything behind; Ben never found so much as a stray hair elastic in the bathroom after she'd gone. He’d never been to her apartment, even though it was actually closer to both of their workplaces, and she never introduced him to her friends. The one time he ran into her with a colleague who’d invited him to come out for a drink, the sheer horror on Rey’s face made it obvious she didn't want him to accept.

But sometimes Ben forgot. And it wasn’t even the sex; it was silly little things that made him feel foolishly sentimental about Rey. He’d bought a bottle of champagne to celebrate after she passed her board exams. She was ridiculously excited because she’d never had it before—and then they ended up drinking beer because she didn’t like the taste. (How was that even possible?) And the sexiest piece of clothing he’d ever seen her in was a pair of kneesocks printed with anatomically correct labelled leg and foot bones. He tackled her on the bed and told her she had to give the Latin name of every body part he kissed. He made it all the way to her anterior superior iliac spine before she started giggling and gasping too hard to continue. 

He had started to hope that she might get a job in the city. Or maybe if she couldn’t find one right away and needed to save money, he’d offer to let her stay at his place. He pushed away the scornful voice in his head reminding him that Rey was far too independent to accept that. What in the hell made him think she’d give it a moment’s consideration? The only reason she hadn’t kicked him to the curb already was because she barely knew him.

And then she’d been so eager to tell him about her great opportunity on literally the other side of the country. In the one city he’d sworn he would never, ever go back to. So that was a pretty clear sign from the universe: she wasn’t his girlfriend, and never would be.

 

Rey unlocked the door to her apartment and let him in. Ben took off his shoes and tried to look everywhere at once while not seeming rabidly curious. The place fell into the usual shabby walk-up category of what a couple of grad students could afford, but it was cheerful. The cracked walls had been meticulously patched and painted a vivid yellow; green and flowering plants luxuriated on every windowsill. Signs of her roommate were evident too. Some of the shoes piled at the front door were too big for Rey, and the coffee table was stacked with psychology textbooks.

Rey dropped her backpack by the door and looked at him, biting her lip. “I guess Jess isn’t home yet.”

That broke what little restraint he had. Ben gave into the urge to touch her that was constant these days, accompanied by the timer in the back of his head counting down the days and hours left until she was gone. 

He grabbed her thighs and lifted, fitting them around his hips as he pressed her into the wall. She laughed, locking her arms around his shoulders to hold herself up, and arched against him, grinding against his hips. He dragged his mouth down her neck, exploring with tongue and teeth, mapping each of the spots he’d learned that made her squirm and gasp. 

“Wait, wait.” Rey loosened her legs and slithered down to stand on tiptoe, still pressed so close to him that her lungs barely had room to rise and fall. “If we start that now I’ll never finish packing. Help me fill at least a few boxes first.”

Ben could see the pulse thumping in Rey’s neck; he wanted to feel it against his lips. He mouthed at it and savoured the way she shivered with her full body. Her hands wound into his hair and tugged, although he couldn’t tell whether she was trying to pull him away or bring him closer. “I mean it. Come on,” she whined into his shoulder. 

He closed his eyes and inhaled a deep breath of the faintly antiseptic scent he now associated with Rey. The smell of hospitals was going to arouse him for a very long time, which might be a problem at his next doctor’s appointment.

“Fine. Three boxes and then I get a blowjob,” he bargained.

Rey nipped at his earlobe. “Four and we can fuck up against the wall.”

 

Ben came to her going-away thing at the pub, of course, even though meeting all of Rey’s friends at once was the last thing he wanted to do. Not showing up at all would mark him as the worst kind of asshole. And it was mildly interesting to finally put faces to all the names he’d learned from her stories: Jess, Kaydel, Mitaka. 

Rey was a happy drunk, unsurprisingly, red-faced and cheerfully buzzed on cheap draft beer. He bought her a pint of import, said hello to Finn, and exchanged handshakes with the man’s boyfriend Poe. He recognized the detective from a few court appearances and the two of them managed fairly cordial shop-talk while Finn dragged Rey onto the tiny dance floor. 

After forty-five minutes Ben calculated he'd stayed long enough for appearances. Rey wasn’t coming home with him—Finn was driving her to the airport at an ungodly early hour—so he had no incentive to stay for two more hours of bad music and watery beer.

He paid his tab and Rey’s, caught her eye and jerked his head toward the exit. No way was he saying goodbye to her in front of a crowd of drunk nurses and doctors. He headed for the narrow stairs to street level—damn, this place was a firetrap—and checked over his shoulder to see that she was following him before he started climbing. Not drinking for all those weeks he was on painkillers must have shot his alcohol tolerance to hell; just one beer had left him sluggish and maudlin. The higher up the stairs he got, the lower it felt as though his stomach was sinking. 

She was young and brilliant; this was her chance to shine. Even if he… liked her, even if he’d wanted to see whether something more were possible, how could he? He had no right to ask her to stay and change her carefully-planned life. Even if she agreed, in the end he’d just drag her down and she’d resent him for it. And he had more than a little experience of how that dynamic could poison a relationship.

 

Rey leaped up the stairs, cursing her shorter legs for Ben’s ability to leave her in his dust. Had he actually been planning to leave without a word? She supposed not, since he’d made the effort to catch her eye before heading for the door. It seemed a little odd for their last leavetaking to be on the street; but when she pictured saying goodbye to Ben in front of a bar full of her tipsy friends, she decided he’d had the right idea after all.

“Hey.” He was waiting for her on the stoop outside, hands crammed in the too-small pockets of his jeans. 

Rey’s momentum carried her so close to him she could feel the warmth rising up from his skin in the cool evening. “So I guess this is it.” She winced at the idiotically chipper sound of her own voice.

“I guess so.” 

Ben cupped her face in his big hands and pushed her tangled hair back. His eyes flickered down to look at her mouth. Rey took the hint and leaned up to kiss him. His lips were cold and he tasted bitter like the dark, expensive beer he drank. She wound her arms around his neck anyway, anchoring herself to his body and pulling his head down. She could always blame the three pints she'd consumed for kissing him like this out on the street, in front of the smokers exiled from the bar for their addiction.

But she couldn't kiss him for hours and hours the way she wanted to. After far too short a time she had to pull back, sliding her hands down from the breadth of his shoulders to his waist. The thought that this would be the last time she’d feel him under her fingertips made her throat ache. She had to get away quickly.

Rey had thought about how to say goodbye to Ben for days, obsessing over what would be too much, too clingy, or too casual. She’d decided it was best to stick with something that was both true and simple.

“I’ll miss you.” She looked up, but the harsh yellow sodium glare of the streetlights made his eyes too dark and hooded to read. 

“I’ll miss you too.” He kissed her forehead, lingering at her temple. “But you’ll do great out in B.C., and you’ll have a great life there.”

Rey strained to hold her eyes wide open, refusing to blink. If she didn’t blink the liquid building in her eyes wouldn’t fall. Of course she’d known she’d probably never see Ben again, even if she came back here to visit Finn and Jessica. But to hear him say it so lightly and dismissively made her feel like her ribs were collapsing, crushing her internal organs. 

She gasped for breath to say, “Yeah. You too.” Her fingers squeezed his hard, just once more, and then she forced them to let go. “Bye.”

“Goodbye, Rey.” His fingers twitched in a silly, half-hearted wave and he turned to go. 

Rey groped behind her for the door handle and fled back inside the bar, clinging to the rail as she stumbled down the stairs. She needed to dance; she needed another beer; she needed anything but seeing Ben walk away without giving her another thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still not satisfied with this chapter, but in the interests of Getting It Done I’m pressing post and going to bed.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for sticking with this ride all the way to the end!  
> (I made a [playlist](https://incognitajones.tumblr.com/post/147717388155/last-train-playlist) just for fun too.)

Rey woke gasping for breath, her face buried in her pillow and her hips rocking restlessly. Her dream evaporated as quickly as the orgasm she’d been on the brink of. All she could remember was the feeling of a long, heavy body covering hers, pressing her down into the mattress.

She clutched the pillow to her face and rolled over, snarling curses. Her body seemed determined to make her pay for the precipitous collapse of her sex life by taunting her with more erotic dreams in the last few months than she’d had since she hit puberty. And of course, she always woke up at the worst possible moment. 

She thumped the bed with a fist to bleed off her temper, but it didn’t work. She was in such a foul mood she didn’t even try to finish herself off—it wouldn’t make her feel much better anyways. 

Rey didn’t want to admit it, but it wasn’t just the regular sex she was missing. Everything here reminded her she was alone: the empty space in the bed beside her, the lack of a warm arm around her on the couch, the plastic microwave meals for one. 

With a groan, she rolled over again and reached for her phone. Nothing from Ben, of course. He might as well have dropped off the face of the earth. Jess had texted a photo of her and Deepa on the couch, BB curled up in Deepa’s lap. She smiled and saved that one.

The forecast called for rain again, surprise. Vancouver during the summer had been lovely, but now that the autumn rains had started Rey felt like a moldy potato. The tiny windows in her cramped basement apartment were too small to let in enough natural light, and so she was always squinting in the fluorescent glare that she hated.

All her co-workers delighted in telling her that winter would be even wetter and greyer. Rey thought they were actually disguising their smugness at the fact it also rarely fell below zero, but whatever. She just hoped moss wouldn’t actually be growing on her ceiling (or on her) by spring.

She spent too much time trading texts with Finn over breakfast, letting his endless supply of terrible jokes cheer her up, and had to race out the door in such a hurry she forgot her backup umbrella. Which meant, of course, that the one she was using blew inside out when she was a block away from the hospital. She ducked into one of the hipster coffee shops that occupied every other storefront and tried to see whether it could be salvaged. One of the ribs was broken, which she could fix with a little duct tape at home, but there was nothing she could do about it right now. 

Since she was here, she bought a coffee and sidled over to an empty table layered with discarded newspapers. Stealing a few of them for cover would at least keep her hair from getting soaked during the last sprint.

She slid a thick section toward her and did a double-take as the movement revealed the photograph of a woman on the page underneath. Why did she look familiar? Rey was sure she’d never seen her before. 

The caption underneath called her “Leia Organa” and as the name sunk in, Rey realized who it must be. She looked again at the deep-set eyes—darker than Ben’s, but the same shape—and the cheekbones that matched his. 

Snatching up the paper, she moved closer to the window and scanned it. Organa was a provincial Court of Appeal justice about to retire from the bench whose successful career was briefly recapped in the article. There was no mention of a son or any family other than an ex-husband, “controversial former Chief of Police Han Solo.” He must be Ben’s father. Unless she was reading too much between the lines, from the tone of the article it seemed his reputation was nowhere near as stellar as his wife’s.

Rey pulled her phone out of her pocket. Even though she’d had to change her cell number when she moved out of province, she’d kept her old list of contacts intact. Her thumb hovered over Ben’s name. 

She would be late for work if she didn’t leave right now. She didn’t have time to fall into the useless trap of thinking about her ex… whatever he was.

What was the point? They lived thousands of kilometres apart now. He’d made it clear that he hated B.C. and wouldn’t be caught dead out here. Obviously he wasn’t interested in keeping in touch. If she reached out to him, the best case scenario was a few perfunctory texts and maybe, if she ever had the chance to visit her friends back east, one last awkward hookup for old times’ sake. 

She tapped on his name and deleted the whole entry. Clean breaks healed the fastest. That wasn't just a metaphor to Rey; she’d built her whole life and her vocation on that principle.

 

Fuck, he hated flying.

Even when it was for a less shitty reason, there was no way someone his height could enjoy being cooped up in a seat three inches too narrow and with just enough legroom that his knees were jammed solidly against the row in front.

The person sitting there tried to recline and Ben grunted as the metal frame dug into his kneecaps. They shimmied their seat again, apparently displeased by the fact that he couldn't fold up like a tent. 

Ben wanted to kick the seat, hard, to shout at them that if they didn't stop trying to fucking cripple him he'd break their legs and see how they liked it. He gripped the armrests instead, making the cheap plastic creak. As satisfying as that would be, it would get him thrown off the plane. And the thought of explaining that delay to the people expecting him…

He realized his jaw was clamped together and forced himself to relax, breathing in through an open mouth. Distraction, he needed a distraction. He pulled his laptop out. There were precedents he could review and billing hours he had to calculate.

But this flight had wifi and the temptation was too strong. Soon he was multiple tabs deep into a web search, and each screen he clicked on was more terrifying than the last. None of the information he could find was reassuring. He didn’t have the knowledge to tell whether it was accurate, either, which only brought to mind the one person he knew who did.

He pushed the heels of his hands against his eyes. He shouldn't. It was pointless. But he was going to be there, in the city where he’d sworn he’d never set foot again. After breaking that vow, what was one little internet stalking session?

“Fuck it,” he mumbled, and typed her name into the search bar.

There it was, the fourth entry: Doctor Rey Kenobi, her office phone number and specialization helpfully listed on the hospital website.

“Fuck,” he repeated, louder, ignoring the offended side eye from the old man next to him. He slammed the laptop shut. Now that he knew, he could forget it, right? It wasn't as though he'd have any time to call, let alone see her. 

Denial had been Ben’s best coping mechanism for his entire adult life. By now he was a master of it. So at first, it hadn’t been hard to convince himself he didn’t miss Rey, especially when he could distract himself with work. He buried himself in files and took on extra clients to make up for the weeks he’d been recuperating and working at half-speed.

He told himself that the only concrete difference Rey’s absence made in his life was the sudden drop in quantity and quality of orgasms—although, to be fair, that was pretty drastic. And he wasn’t finding her long hair in his shower drain anymore. That was definitely a plus. 

It wasn’t until he realized he missed the way strands of it always seemed to get in his mouth when she slept beside him that he admitted he might just possibly have a problem. 

The jerk in front cranked their seat lower, crushing his knees. Ben swore again. Four hours of this left. The flight attendants had finally started pushing the drink cart down the aisle and he reached for his wallet, resigned to paying the airline’s ridiculous premium price for cheap liquor. He was going to need the fuzzy insulation of alcohol to deal with the rest of this flight, never mind what was about to face him after he landed in Vancouver.

 

Rey’s co-workers had been proven right; Vancouver in winter was definitely more damp and gloomy than she’d thought possible. It was mid-December, ten shopping days left until Christmas, and Rey had never felt less seasonally festive in her life—which was saying something, considering her childhood. 

Even at noon, the sun was only a dim blur through the uniform grey rainclouds pressing down on the city. At least she could walk part of the way to her bus stop under the cover of the roof of the ambulance bay. She grimly zipped her jacket up to her chin before lowering her head and trudging through the sliding doors.

“Rey.” The deep, quiet voice stopped her in her tracks like a hand on her shoulder. 

She pivoted slowly and there he was, lurking on the far side of the wheelchair ramp. Ben, with the same ridiculous, messy hair and perfectly fitted overcoat as always. Ben, here in Vancouver. 

Was this another dream? Maybe she was about to wake up any second, unfulfilled and irritated again. 

Rey’s body temperature jumped from chilled to burning and her coat suddenly felt too heavy despite the damp wind in her face. She nearly swallowed her tongue as Ben crossed the sidewalk in two long strides and stopped a few feet away.

“Hi,” he said, tall and broad, looking down at her with his hands shoved deep in his pockets.

Before Rey knew what her body was going to do, she’d lurched forward, almost falling into Ben. She looped her arms through his to circle around his back and pressed her forehead against the warm wool of his coat. “What are you doing in Vancouver?”

“It’s a long story.” Slowly, tentatively, he folded his arms around her in return. But he held her loosely, keeping a careful distance between them, and the heat inside her drained away, leaving her chilled and shivering again. 

Rey let go, pulling away from his warmth, and yanked her backpack higher up on her shoulder. She couldn’t invite him back to her depressing, dingy apartment—even if she didn’t mind him seeing the place, it would seem like she was trying to start something he obviously wasn’t here for. “Well, I’ve been up since midnight and I desperately need caffeine. Buy me a latte and you can tell me the whole story.”

 

By force of will they managed to claim one of the tables crammed into a back corner of the cafe across the street from the hospital. The scent of damp clothes and roasted coffee permeated the crowded room. Ben stared at her over their cups and Rey couldn’t help tracing familiar patterns in the dark marks dotting his face.

“I never planned to come back, but—” He looked down into his espresso and turned the cup round and round on the saucer without taking a sip. “My mother is sick.” 

“Is that why she retired?” Rey asked. 

He looked up, the heavy lines of his brow lifting in surprise, and she told him about the newspaper article. “As soon as I saw the name and the photo, I knew who she was. You look very much alike.”

Ben shook his head, his mouth flattened in disagreement. “No, we don’t. I’ve always taken after my dad.”

“Well, I saw a resemblance.” Rey swirled a spoon through the foam of her latte and licked it off. “How is she doing?”

“Not good.” He shifted in his chair, unsuccessfully trying to fit his knees under the table, and his eyes went past her to the fogged-up window. “She has stage three ovarian cancer.”

“Oh god. I’m sorry, Ben.” Rey pressed her knuckles against her mouth, holding back the rest of the inane condolences that were all she had to offer. 

“She didn’t even want me to know. She said she didn’t want me to feel pressured to visit.” Ben picked up a sweetener packet and turned it over, creasing it into tighter and tighter accordion folds until it popped and sugar crystals rained on the table. “My father—my _father_ —called to tell me. You won’t understand why that’s so bizarre, but let’s just say I’m pretty sure both of us thought we’d never speak to each other again.

“Surgery was on Friday and she starts chemo tomorrow. She’s relatively young and healthy, but her chances are still… not great.” He shrugged and drained half his espresso in one swallow. “But you probably know that better than me.”

“Survival rates are improving all the time.” Rey tried not to grimace at the inadequate platitude. She slid her hands across the sticky table and closed them around his restless fingers before he could reach for another sugar packet. 

“Anyway.” He turned his hands over, lacing his fingers through hers in turn. “I didn’t tell you I was coming because I wasn’t sure how much free time I’d have, or if you’d even want to see me. But it’s Dad’s turn to look after her today, and there was nothing to do except sit in my hotel room. I had to get out and just… walk, and then I found myself across the street from the hospital.”

“How did you know where I was?” she interrupted, realizing she’d never told him the name of her workplace. 

Ben chuckled once, mirthlessly. “Rey, your name is on their website.”

“Oh. Right.” She flushed.

“I’m sorry if I startled you.” He moved in his chair again, rattling the table, and tightened his hands around hers. “I just—I just needed to see you. One more time.” 

And like that, the painful hope she had been trying to ignore as it built inside her was crushed. Rey closed her eyes for a moment. 

Ben reached across the table and cupped her cheek with a cool hand—he hadn’t been wearing gloves. She turned her head into his palm, and her mouth brushed across the pad of his thumb. The grain of his fingerprint burned on her lips.

“Well, then.” She opened her eyes and looked up at him, the pulse thumping in her throat making it hard to speak. “Where’s your hotel?”

“Are you—did you mean right now?” He blinked. 

Had she totally misunderstood? She babbled to cover the awkward pause. “If that's not what you meant—of course not, I’m sorry, let me buy you another coffee—”

“Let’s go. Please.” The low, rough note in Ben’s voice made her shiver. He shoved his chair back until it bounced off the wall behind him and stood.

 

Rey’s head was light and hollow as a balloon, her insides twisting and fizzing. She felt drunk. She had no reason to be shy or nervous about sex with Ben—not when she’d done things with and to him that she’d never done with anyone else—but still, her nerves wouldn’t stop jumping erratically. 

Ben’s soft mouth moved over hers the same as before; his hands were the same, stroking up the sides of her ribs under her shirt, large and warm where they spanned her waist. Everything was familiar and yet somehow terrifying. She told herself it was just because she hadn't done this in six months.

Rey grabbed for Ben’s belt buckle, twisting her wrist to snap it undone. He dropped his head onto her shoulder and swore. 

“Condoms. I don’t have any. I wasn’t expecting...” He trailed off and pulled in a deep breath she could feel everywhere he pressed against her. He lifted his head to look at her. “We don’t have to—”

“Shh.” Rey put her fingertips against his mouth, feeling the damp heat of his breath. “I haven’t slept with anyone else since I left Toronto. If you’re okay with it, I am.”

She wanted to hide her face in his chest so she didn’t have to meet his eyes. She focused on his throat instead and watched him swallow. 

“I—no. I haven’t either. But what about—”

“Implant.” Rey touched the bump in her upper arm. She’d had the first put in at sixteen, part of her burning determination to ensure she couldn't be trapped into continuing the shitty life cycle of girls like her, and she'd never been without one since.

“Okay.” Ben towed her backward with him, toward the bed, clasping her elbows lightly as if he still wasn’t sure she would stay. “If you change your mind, just say—”

Rey couldn't stand it any longer. She pushed him down on to the bed, crawled into his lap and kissed him.

The absence of a few millimetres of latex didn’t mean anything; it had no significance as long as she was confident she was protected in other ways. But if she'd given this any thought (and if she were honest with herself she had definitely fantasized about one last time with Ben) she'd have expected this encounter to be urgent, demanding yet brief.

Instead it was slow and shivery. Her skin pebbled with goosebumps everywhere Ben touched her until he warmed it with his mouth. The room was dark; he'd turned off the light by the door and the thick hotel drapes kept what dim grey daylight there was from intruding. Neither of them said anything. All that broke the silence was the rustle of sheets and their ragged, overlapping breathing, the liquid sound of lips meeting and parting from skin.

She smoothed her palms down his spine and pressed her fingers into his haunches, not to spur him on faster but for the pleasure of feeling muscles work under his skin as he moved inside her. He dropped his head, burying it in the wreck of her hair spilled across the pillow. His breath was hot on her ear. 

When he set his teeth gently in the side of her neck, her back arched up as her orgasm flooded through her. It took Rey by surprise, startling a soft cry out of her that sounded shockingly loud in the silent room. Ben’s mouth buzzed against the skin of her shoulder as he mumbled something in the midst of a kiss. His biceps strained, barely keeping his weight off her as he came with an equally muffled groan. 

He dropped heavily to the bed, rolling to his side and pulling her against his chest. Rey shut her eyes and started counting the seconds left to let herself bask in this, before she had to get up and break the illusion.

 

Ben was exhausted and aching and sated and felt better than he had in weeks, ever since he’d gotten the phone call from his father. All he wanted to do was curl around Rey and sleep for a hundred years. Maybe a thousand. He had just enough energy left to gather her hair in one hand, pull it to the side, and dot the back of her neck with kisses. She smelled of antiseptic soap with a salty edge of sweat. Perfect.

She stiffened in his arms, muscles locking up. “I should go,” she said in a colourless voice. She slid out of bed and didn’t look at him as she started collecting her scattered clothes.

“What the hell?” Ben sat up, shoving aside the rumpled pile of heavy hotel linens. “Did you think this was some kind of cross-country booty call?”

Rey shook her head, mouth pinched tight, and reached for her shirt where it had fallen at the foot of the bed.

“You did.” He couldn’t believe it. Suddenly furious, he grabbed her hand. “Rey. I just flew thousands of kilometres to see my dying mother and try not to kill my asshole of a father. I told myself it was stupid to complicate things any further by seeing you. But I had to. And it wasn’t because I wanted to get laid.”

She pulled her hand away and clutched the shirt in front of her breasts like a shield. “I don’t understand.”

“I think you do.” 

The look in her eyes—incredulous yet tempted—made his heart thud quicker and quicker. At least part of her wanted to believe him. But he knew Rey well enough by now to understand that she’d never admit it first. If he wanted this, he’d have to be the one to make a leap of faith, beg her to stay, and take the chance that she might still walk away rather than risk it.

He swallowed and said it. “I’m tired of pretending I don’t want to be with you.”

Her lips opened, but she didn’t say anything. All he could do was keep going. “And I think—I hope—you feel the same way. Don’t you?”

He waited, unbreathing.

“Yes, dammit.” Her voice cracked on the last syllable. 

Ben’s heart tried to grow like the grinch’s and expand three sizes. He reached out for Rey, but she twitched away from him. “But it doesn’t matter.”

“Why?” He shoved his hands through his hair, tugging it back in frustration.

Her eyes shone with tears in the dim light. “We still live in two different provinces, Ben. I don’t have the money to travel back east and your mom is going to need all your time and attention when you’re here. Trying to keep this going long-distance? That’s crazy.” She yanked the shirt over her head with an irritated huff. 

If she was going to focus on the obstacles, that was fine. That he could argue against. “Who says it would be long-distance? I’m thinking of moving back to Vancouver. I need to be closer to my mom to help out.”

“Seriously?” Rey blinked, her lashes dark and wet. “What would you do here?”

“Get called to the bar and practice.” He shrugged. “Use the family name and connections I said I’d never trade on to find work. My mother will be thrilled.”

She shook her head, looking dazed. “Then what—we start dating? Move in together? What’s the point, Ben? We still barely know each other.”

“Bullshit,” he snapped. He got off the bed and grabbed her shoulders. She felt thin and tense in his hold, ready to break. He gentled his grasp and slid his hands down to hold her arms. She stared at his chest, refusing to meet his eyes.

This was impossible. Ben didn’t have the emotional ballast to deal with Rey’s issues as well as his own right now. But if he couldn’t convince her somehow, he was going to lose her forever. He could tell her that he loved her, because it was true, but he doubted it would mean anything to Rey now. She’d had enough of empty words; he'd have to prove it to her before he could say it.

He took a deep breath. He had no idea whether any of this would reach her, but if he had to he would get on his knees and beg. “Look. I used to think that my parents should never have stayed together. As a kid, all I understood was that they made each other miserable.”

Rey crossed her arms over her chest, hunching in on herself. “This is a really, really terrible argument.”

“But when I saw them this week… whatever his faults, my dad loves my mom. And he’s there for her now, when it counts. I want to have that with you. I want you to know that I'll be there for you, no matter what.”

“You can’t make those kinds of promises. No-one can.” Rey jerked back, and his hands slid down her arms to her elbows. He held on desperately, willing her to listen. 

“You’re right. I can’t promise that I won’t get hit by a car again tomorrow. But I can promise that I will never, _ever_ disappear on you. I'm yours for as long as you want me. If you ever want to get rid of me, you’ll have to kick me out.”

“I don’t know.” Her thin voice was nearly inaudible.

“I know you don’t believe me yet. That’s fine. Just give me a chance to prove it.”

“No, I mean…” She swallowed, clenching her fists in frustration. “I don’t know how to do this, Ben. What if I fuck up and hurt you?”

“I don’t care. The only thing that matters is whether you want to try.” His heart pounded, oddly distant; it sounded like a drum beating outside his body. “Do you?”

Rey didn’t lift her head. She stared at the hotel carpet, her teeth indenting her bottom lip so hard it turned white. But she nodded, closing her eyes.

Ben should have pinched himself but right now he didn’t care if this was a dream. He lifted Rey off her feet with the momentum of his hug. She wound her arms around his back, burrowing into his shoulder. Her tears dampened his skin and he crushed her even tighter. She was not going to regret this, he swore. If it took the rest of his life he’d prove to her that she could trust him.

“Now what?” she asked, sniffling into his chest. “Were you serious about moving here?”

“Fuck, yes.” Ben swung her around and dropped to the bed, pulling Rey down with him. “I already put in an application to the Law Society.”

Her smile was watery and trembling, but real. “We need to look for a new apartment, then, because mine’s a real shithole.”

“Later,” he told her, wrapping her in his arms and inhaling her scent again just because he could. “For now we’re going to stay right here in this bed.” 

 

Ben was still stressed about leaving First Order and frustrated with his feckless dad and terrified for his mother—but for the first time in decades, when he woke, the first and strongest thing he felt was happiness. Because Rey was here next to him, within reach, and she was smiling sleepily at him as though she were happy too.

He supposed that he might, just maybe, eventually get used to this. But he was looking forward to it feeling strange and wonderful for a very long time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew! Thanks again to all of you kind readers who were guinea pigs for my first attempt at writing sex scenes and the first time I tried to expand a story without a rough idea of how to continue. 
> 
> I’m normally a pretty loose plotter, but writing this was like the difference between setting out on a cross-country trip with a destination in mind (even if you don’t know all the highways you’re going to take along the way) and getting totally lost on the freeway in a strange city at rush hour. At least, that’s my excuse for the stumbles & continuity issues. I doubt that I’ll go back and smooth them out, but now that we’ve reached the end I felt the need to apologize for them. ;-)
> 
> Time to get back to my other WIPs now...


End file.
